PicoBrew

I received my Pico Brew beer making system last Friday.  I got it unpacked and setup over the weekend, and read through the instructions (and continue to reread them).  The Pico Brew is pitched as the Keurig of beer.  All the ingredients are pre-measured and are mainly contained in a grain pak and a hops pak. You put both paks in the machine, add water and let it go.  However, unlike coffee, you don't drink the hot result, instead you then add the yeast and let it ferment for a week or two.  After that you rack and carbonate it.  Only after all that's done, do you have beer to serve.

I started my first beer Monday night, called Buffalo Sweat.  It's a stout.  I've done the brewing and hopping, and will be setting it up to ferment tonight.
I have a choice of standard fermentation or fast fermentation, and I've decided to go the standard route.  It may take longer, but there's less chance of something going wrong.
Next, I have a choice of Forced Carbonation or Keg Conditioning carbonation.  I'm not sure which way to go here.  I think I'd like the beer better with Keg Conditioning, but it takes a LOT longer- 36 hours vs 3 weeks.  I have more beer paks coming, so I may do this one with Forced Carbonation, and use my other serving keg with another beer to keg condition.  I assumed that the beer would be in the fermenting keg for the whole time, and only transferred to the serving keg to drink.  I have received an extra keg of both, so I think I'll be ok.  My original idea was to have one beer being served while another was fermenting.  That would work if I force carbonate, but not if I keg condition.

to be continued......

GABF Notes

Great American Beer Festival 2010 notes, starting with the winners list http://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/the-competition/winners/
I see that Blue Moon's Chardonnay Blonde won the Fruit Beer category. I remember trying this, and yes, it tastes like wine. So, why drink this instead of wine? As a trend, there seemed to be more of these wine-beers and more scotch beers. Not a lot, but more than previous years. (unless comparing to previous years shows I'm wrong)
A Boulder brewery I hadn't heard of (that won) is Twisted Pine Brewery. (but the Big Shot Expresso Stout sounds familiar. Hmmmm)
New Planet Beer Company of Boulder, advertising Gluten Free beer, got Bronze for 3R Raspberry Ale. Didn't taste any different than Gluten beers. Still, great news for getting drunk if you have IBS.
Of course, there's this category full of WIN:
Category 30: American-Style Specialty Lager or Cream Ale or Lager (42 Entries)
Hamm.s Miller Brewing Co. Milwaukee, WI
-
Rainier Pabst Brewing Co. Woodridge, IL
-
Old Style Pabst Brewing Co. Woodridge, IL
-
I guess there's a reason they're still around. Last year a blog (Life in the Great Midwest) did a crappy beer challenge. (http://lifeinthegreatmidwest.blogspot.com/search/label/Crappy%20Beer%20Challenge) None of the winning beers were in that challenge. The closest would be PBR. I wonder if these day's they're small enough to be Craft Beers? I went to C.B. & Potts Sunday, and they won bronze in European-Style Dunkel for their Dark Side Lager
I'll be in Keystone for Thanksgiving, and a local there, Pug Ryans Brewery, got Gold for their Bock, Hellats Good Beer
Bristol's Laughing Lab Scottish Ale won an award AGAIN. It had also won Silver in the Scottish Ale category at the 1996 World Beer Cup, the 2000 and 2006 Gold Medals, the 2007, 2002, 2001, and 1996 Silver Medals and the 1994 and 2005 Bronze Medals in the Scottish Ale category at the Great American Beer Festival
Wow, Equinox in Ft Collins, a new brewery, won bronze for Eclipse Brown Ale. Equinox was started by a home brew store.
Sun King Brewing Co in Indianapolis won two awards. They're just east of downtown. Strangely, on their website, they don't list either of their winners as currently being on tap. It'll be a place to hit after the Auto Show this Christmas.
Durango, a city of 14,000, won 4 awards from 2 breweries, and they have 4. My count puts Ft Collins at 7 breweries. We have a LOT of breweries in Colorado.

Misc notes
I drank less beer this year, but had more fun.
I wasn't as concerned that I pass by all the tables.
Many booths took down or covered up their sign listing their name, location and beers offered. This made it harder to figure out if I wanted something from them.
I never felt I had a buzz. I was full, so I know I was drinking.
Even though we got in line later and were much furtherback, the line moved so quickly I don't think it mattered.
Pretzels worked for me, and my necklace was about the right amount. Still, there has to be other foods that would work too.

Twisted Tea Mix Pack review

I've tried 4 of the 6 varieties in the Mix Pack, I only have to try Original, and Half & Half. The four I've tried are Light, Backyard, Midnight, and Raspberry.
I didn't like the Raspberry. The mix of tea and berry just didn't mesh here. I like other raspberry iced teas, so I assume it's something to do with the malt beverage part.
The other three are about the same- tea. The Midnight is stronger, while the Backyard is weaker (waterier?), and the Light (ONLY 115 calories) tasted like the Backyard, which is supposed to be sun tea (the Midnight is supposed to be black tea).
I expect the Half & Half to be slightly lemony, and not the half lemonade, half iced tea it should be.
I assume that Original will be like the triplets mentioned above.

In conclusion, they're all about the same, all good. I may not have the greatest taste buds, or may not have developed enough of a palate to differentiate the differences. I wonder if I could tell the differences between regular tea varieties?

Gnarly Barley 2010

Went to the 2nd annual Gnarly Barley Brew Fest on Sat 8/7/10 over at the Larimer County Fairgrounds. This is about 20 min from my home. Got there 15 min early and were about 5th in line. By the time the 'doors' opened, there were about 50 in line. $15 to get in, which got us a mug that held about 8oz, and 6 wooden tokens each worth $1 or 4oz of brew. They had about 15 breweries, each had 2 beers on tap (some more some less [cans]) all setup under their own small tents. When we went back before leaving, it was the most crowded, and many tents were out of beer. I ended up using 9 tokens ($3 extra) to try all the wheat beers that were new to me. Also had a taste of my friends beers, when he got something different.

Got to talk to two new NoCo breweries: Equinox and Grimm Bros.

Equinox is out of Old Town, Ft Collins and grew out of the owners homebrew store. Or, I should say, grew into. They have a tasting room.

Grimm Brothers Brewhouse are in East Loveland, near Walmart. Opened 2 weeks earlier, they're still feeling out their market for the hours of their tasting room.

I'm not sure if these are anything more than a different style of brew pub. If you don't bottle and distribute... Then again, if you don't serve food, what are you?

Back to the tasting. I used 9 tokens, and chose these:

1- Tommyknocker Jack Whacker a Wheat Ale Style: Herb and Spices 14IBU. A good beer.

2-Equinox Sunrise Golden Ale. Too hoppy. I'm not a fan of hop flavor, but don't mind IBU (see Guinness)

3- Durango Wheat Beer 12IBU. Again too hoppy, but better than #2

4-Ft Collins Brewing Major Tom's Pomegranate Wheat. Best wheat yet, still not there.

5-Bristol Brewing Beehive Honey Wheat 16IBU. Solid (A)!

6-Brothers Grimm Snow Drop, a Pale Wheat Ale. Too hoppy

7-Del Norte Cinco Mexican Style Lager. This is the Mexican Light style they make, and it's what I expected having drunk Corona, Sol, etc. Nothing exciting, but a light refreshing beer.

8-Sam Adams Coastal Wheat. I rated this a good+

9- Oskar Blues Old Chub, a Scotch Ale. I cheated here as this is a favorite, but we had reached the end of the tents, and I had one token left. I said I wanted to try something new from them, but the only beer I hadn't tried were all IPAs. Guess I could have tried the Mama's Little Yella Pils. OK, I SHOULD have tried something new from them.

Also tried the Brothers Grimm Fearless Youth, a Munich Dunkel Lager, and thought it was great.

Tried the Breckenridge Brewery Buddha's Hand Witbier at Old Chicago later. Horrible. Took two sips and left the rest. Strangely, the waitress never asked about why I wasn't drinking it.

My highlight (and showing what a wimp I am) was trying Twisted Tea at the Sam Adams booth, on ice. I couldn't (at the time) taste any alcohol in this, it just tasted like Iced Tea. I think my taste buds were dead, or at least confused by this time. However, I liked it so much I sought out the Mix Pack, that has six different flavors in it. Didn't find it at the first two (big) liquor stores, but found it at my local. The second place told me they had it on order, but it had been out of stock for a month. At home I crack open the box (no date markings on the outside), and see the bottles listing their 'best by' dates being months ago. They still seem to taste fine, and still enjoyable. But, that's the topic for a different post.

Beer reviews

The GABF web page has a Sell-out-o-meter up, and they're 66% sold, with SAT evening session being the least sold out. 522 Breweries, 2,338 beers served.

In other beer news, I found a 6-pack of Upslope Brewery (new brewery in boulder) Pale Ale when I was in Denver TUE at Tipsy's (a store I remember seeing on Upslope's page as carrying it). They currently make two beers: the aforementioned Pale Ale and an IPA. The PA impressed me: not very bitter, good amber color.
I figured maybe I had this whole pale ale thing wrong, so I went out and bought a Pliny the Elder, an A+ rated IPA. OK, a pale ale isn't an IPA; IPAs are stronger in taste in all categories. Still, I hated it less than any IPA I've ever had! I do like the Upslope Pale Ale.
I also bought a 6-pack of Colorado Native, a new microbrew Lager from A C Golden (aka Coors), all ingredients from Colorado and sold only in Colorado. It's not my favorite, but I wouldn't turn one down. I'd put it close to 90 Shilling, stronger than Fat Tire.
I Still have some Crabtree Golden 8 in the fridge. It's an interesting beer whose taste seems to vary depending on what I'm eating along with it. Sometimes it tastes very sweet. Still enjoying that 'ale' (seems to be a catch all or a wide category). Officially, it's a golden ale.

Upcoming NoCo events

Gnarly Barley Brew Fest is coming up on Aug 7th.
Also, the weekend after that (Aug 14-15) there are two events:
1- Glock shoot at Weld County.
2- Mini Takes the States is at Infinity Park in Glendale on SAT, with events test drives and other stuff. I've signed up for a free test drive/ autocross of the new AWD Countryman (I think) on sat morning.