Beer Diary...

As I go through the Mexican craft beers available at The Beer Company I'm finding my preference is a pretty narrow list. Most of the craft beer breweries take on classic styles tend to be too malty and too sweet to be considered good examples. At least this is what I'm finding in terms of my comparisons to commercial versions outside of Mexico. I've only had one beer so far that has the hop bitterness and flavor/aroma presence that I've considered a good example of a pale ale. I'm not reviewing that beer this time but it deserves a quick mention. Calavera's American Pale Ale, has what I deem the appropriate malt bill and hop influence in it's taste. One other qualifier that I need to introduce is what I believe is the influence that Southern California breweries are having on the craft market in Baha California, Mexico. There are a couple of breweries there that are producing some good, true to style beers that I'm enjoying. One of those breweries is T....

Going to the tianguis or outdoor market every week becomes a regular routine for me while living in San Miguel. I can get the best selection and least expensive produce there, not to mention be entertainment by the plethora of interesting, varied and sometimes bizarre articles for sale, like a boat load of springs for instance, (go here to read more about that) . But that's not all, as I discovered last week. Towards the far end of the market just beyond the last of the colorful tarps that stretch across the endless booths,  I ran across a group of three pulqueros selling their home made pulque out of large plastic jugs along with miel de agave, the juice of the maguey. Pulqueros line up to dispense Naturally, since I have a proclivity for all fermented beverages I had to sample what was on tap so to speak. I was a bit reluctant considering the possibility of ingesting a swath of unfamiliar bacteria that would possibly gi...

Homebrewers in Mexico are few and far between so I was excited to be invited to one of the local cervecero's house for a few samples of his beer and a discussion about brewing beer at home in Mexico. Barry lives just outside the city limits here in San Miguel in a beautiful house he designed himself. He met us in the driveway at the stone path that led to his 'man cave '/brewery. The first thing I noticed as we entered was the three tap handles coming out of the wall near the bar sink. Above is shelving with custom labeled beer mugs and pitcher and the walls are decorated with signs advertising his favorites. An island bar made with rough hewn wood and a stainless sink separate the kitchen area from the lounge section. A big screen t.v. on the opposite wall had the game on and that end of the room was furnished with what looked like some pretty comfortable chairs and a couch. But we ended up standing around the bar during the whole visit drawing beers off the taps, talking...

This is the first set of Mexican craft beers that I've tasted after making a visit to The Beer Company. I plan to review as many as possible here and will use a gentle touch in the process. As this is a burgeoning industry I don't want to be too negatively critical in my opinion but simply state objectively what I'm tasting and experiencing. I am pretty familiar with the classic beer styles and what characteristics define those styles in regards to the flavor, aroma, mouthfeel and visual aspects. I would like to evaluate the beers here based on this knowledge but I have to take into consideration the fact that for Mexico the craft beer movement is a new industry. Along with this fact it must be noted that there has been little exposure here to the foreign beer market and thus few classic beer styles available to compare to when brewing beers on a small scale that mimic the traditional qualities of the classics. So, for instance in...

The last time I was in San Miguel de Allende (a year and a half ago) there was not a lot of craft beer on the scene. The restaurants and tiendas were tied into either the Modelo brand which included Corona, Negro Modelo and Victoria to name a few, or the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brewery with their Indio, Sol and Bohemia. At the time, the largest market in town 'Mega' was the only place that offered a broader but still limited selection of other brands but these ' exotics ' were the likes of Heineken and Bud along with a couple of German imports.   I was happy to discover this year the addition of a serious outlet for beer. It seems the gaining interest in homebrewing and Mexican craft beer is moving beyond the borders of Mexico City evidenced by the opening of The Beer Company here in SMA. Owners, Antonio and Elizabeth, who happen to be not only incredibly nice people but are real beer enthusiasts with a lot of knowledge to offer about the craft beer scene here. Locat...

After the long haul to Mexico (17 hours), sunset on the rooftop of the Antigua Capilla hotel was the perfect place and time for a large bottle or ballena (the slang term here along the coast that means whale) of my favorite Modelo brand beer. Inland, it's referred to as a caguama or turtle. A Vienna lager on the light side of course but with more flavor than other Modelo brands. Victoria was originally produced by the Compañía Cervecera de Toluca y México that was acquired by Grupo Modelo in 1935. The city of San Miguel de Allende through a beer

The trip out of San Jose airport was too easy. I purposely scheduled our arrival anticipating the clusterf*ck that is always going on at the airport and so we got to the baggage check ready to endure an extended session of kicking luggage down a never ending maze. But no line. In fact, no people at all except a guy behind the United counter that took our luggage with obvious boredom and just a hint of disdain. This process took up only about two minutes out of my perfect plan and we're off to our appointment with TSA for a what I expect to be a severe probing before boarding the 'mother ship' . Again, no people. This whole episode may cause some inappropriate false hope when planning any future trips. The up side; no crowds to contend with, the down side; we're through security in no time flat and now have two hours to kill. I spent the time thinking about how I would further my beer interests in Mexico. Should I try to brew beer this time like I h...

Just when I thought I had nothing left to say, I'm launching a new blog. As Susan and I head south for the winter, we thought it would be fun(?) to write about our Mexican experiences in a kind of 'he said'-'she said' format. We will be covering the activities we share together and writing individually about them from our own perspectives. Please click on the image to go directly to the Gringado website and then click on the follow button to join us as we explore the people, events and culture of Mexico and develop our own creative writing styles. In the mean time I plan to continue posting here at Beer Diary...  as I search for decent beer and interesting beer stuff in Mexico. Muchas gracias!

I've been busy with family stuff recently, along with getting ready for another trip to Mexico. These events are taking up a lot of my beer and beer blogging related time. Once I get to San Miguel de Allende I will be checking out the local beer scene and reporting my findings here. We'll see you there. Drawing by Susan Dorf

There will be some changes to the brewing classes this coming spring. I've found that the five week course is too labor intensive and cumbersome for me to continue. The main problem is shuttling full fermentors of beer back and forth between the campus and the area that the fermentation takes place. This moving of heavy liquids can be a real pain and it doesn't contribute to a healthy and clean beer in the end. So, until I have a facility where the fermentors and for that matter the brewing equipment can stay put I will be modifying the classes. Beginning this Spring I will be offering a one day entry level or beginner brewing class and also a one day advanced or all-grain brewing class for those with some brewing experience. These classes will incorporate the study materials that were used in the five week course but modified to address the concerns of these two areas of brewing. Additionally, besides the already existing 'Beer tasting and appreciation' cla...

It's time once again for me to get ready to leave the country for a few months and in preparation for my absence I want to have forty gallons of lagers in kegs by December 1st. to begin aging. They will stay in cold storage during the cool California winter months. My plan is to return to enjoy a Schwarzbier, Dunkel, Bock and Doppelbock when I return for the spring season in April. This meant that I needed to create some yeast starters that would get the beer fermented in a reasonable amount of time so I can keg and get them aging by December 1st. (departure date). I'm using White Labs WLP830 and WLP833 lager yeast for this years beers. Each vial is stepped up two times to achieve what I believe will be about 200 billion cells per pitch. This I will use for the Schwarzbier and the Dunkel.  Lower cell counts than what Mr. Malty probably recommends but I've had good success with this pitch rate in the past. Once those two beers are fermen...

Near the top of my list of favorite beer styles is the Belgian Tripel. I can't get enough of these beers and regularly have a homebrewed clone version of Chimay's Cinq Cents on tap at my house, (yeah, pretty pedestrian but they make a great tripel). So when I saw a unique brand on display at the Whole Foods beer cooler I snatched it up to do my typical comparison to the giant of Tripels, Chimay. The Straffe Hendrik Brugean Tripel is less of a strict Belgian tripel but seems to be more of a cross between a Belgian Dubbel and tripel. De Halve Maan (the half moon) Brewery claims to be the only authentic(?) Belgian brewery in the city of Bruges for whatever that's worth. The brewery first mentioned in town records from 1546 has been owned by Maes-Vanneste family since 1856. For more information about this historical brewery go here . What is authentic and for that matter more valuable is the flavor and quality of this beer. I like it a lot. For a tripel there is an inor...

Part I As a homebrewer, you come to expect a certain number of brewing hassles, tragedies and disasters to occur as time goes on, but when you experience a long string of successes it seems to suddenly comes as a shock when things get screwed up. Case in point for me: this whole week. Let me start with lessons learned in brewing school. I've taught a five week course here at the local community college for a few years now and although I've dreaded the day, have never had a spoiled batch of beer come out of it all. The day finally came this last Sunday and the experience took me down a few notches. I've always stressed the importance of sanitation but also suggested that it was not at the top of my homebrewing concerns, opting instead for emphasis on several other critical elements in brewing that you can read about here . I may have to re-visit this list after discovering that the German hefeweizen came out of the fermentor with an extreme case of sour. ...

A subject came up between myself and another homebrewer regarding the difference between using steeping grains in an extract brew and the use of a partial grain or mini-mash regimen and why one is called a partial mash and one doesn't deserve that much credit. It was more like an argument not a subject, but the subject was about the definition. I suggested that the primary difference begins with the brewers intention when using either process. Is the intention to extract sugar from the grains? Or, is the intention to simply provide additional color and flavor to your extract brew? If the answer is that the intention is to not only add color and flavor but sugar, then a certain percentage of base malt (2-row or 6-row) needs to be included in the grist in order to provide the diastatic power (enzymes) to convert the starches of your mix of grain to simple sugars. Thus, allowing for a measurable extraction.  On the other hand, base ma...

The interest in beer cans instead of bottles predates prohibition, but the challenge for manufacturers was finding affordable materials that could withstand the pressure of carbonated beer, not to mention concerns that the metal would negatively effect the flavor of the beer. Ceramic 'cone top' beer can. In 1933 the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Co. of New Jersey took the risk of packaging their beer in cans referred to as 'flat tops'. Beer in cans soon became quite popular and by 1935 Krueger was buying 180,000 cans a day from the American Can Co. At this time, Schlitz Brewing got on board with the canning craze and introduced its lager beer in cans but instead of the the 'flat top' they chose to use the unusual 'cone top' cans made by Continental Can Co. Ceramics before painting and glaze. By the mid 50's it became clear that the 'flat top' style of can would beat out the 'cone tops' for market share mainly because they coul...

While I was purchasing the beer at Bobby's Liquors for my recent beer tasting class at Cabrillo College I splurged by getting a bottle of something nice just for me. In this case, Stone's collaborative Cherry Chocolate Stout. The cost? $4 for a 12oz. bottle. This is a beer that was developed with input from Jason Fields and Kevin Sheppard and brewed by Troegs Brewing with and at Stone Brewing Co. in San Diego, California. The use of  special ingredients including chocolate, cherries and vanilla beans makes this a unique and very tasty beer. From the bottle I saw that it also contains lactose sugar, reminiscent of the milk stouts of days gone by. It weights in at 7.3% abv. although I didn't detect any flavor or warmth from it but definitely got the cherries right off the bat and the chocolate has a serious impact on the flavor. The vanilla, not so much, but on the periphery I would say, along with a smokey quality. A little heavy and on the sweet side for me as I found ...

I don't know where to begin, except to say that there are no simple answers. So, I'm posing this question to you who happen to stumble upon or are following this blog. But what is the question you ask? Simple. How does one decide on a selection of beers if you're conducting a beer tasting class? The reality is that there are twenty three recognized classic styles of beer not including mead, cider, melomel, and perry (whatever that is). In addition, there are a total of seventy nine subcategories that make up these styles. Break that down even further by considering the companies that brew these beers and you've got thousands of beer out there to choose from. Now, your mission if you choose to accept it is to pick just eight of those beers to present in a three hour tasting session. Making the choice of beers can be a creative process and that is how I approach it. I begin this process with an intention. For instance, I may make the decision on my selecti...

Congratulations to all of the competitors in this years Santa Cruz County Fair homebrewing contest. The following are the results from this years event. Please forward this to anyone you know that may have entered beer this year. Competition Results SC County Fair 2011 9/10/2011   Best of Show Winner Chris Scianni Flight Winners - Flight Description - Beer Style Robert Conticello - English Brown Ale, Porter - Mild Harendra Goontilleke - English/Imperial IPA - Imperial IPA Katie Lipton - Belgian Strong, Sour Ale, Strong Ale - Belgian Dark Strong Ale Michael Lipton - Wheat/Rye, Belgian/French - Belgian Specialty Ale Larry Lynch-Freshner - Fruit, Spice/Herb/Vegetable, Smoke/Wood - Classic Rauchbier Sean McMasters - Stout - American Stout Dennis Nolan - Mead- Braggot Dennis Nolan - Cider - Common Cider Gary Schilling - Hybrids - California Common Beer Chris Scianni - American IPA - American IPA Mark Taylor - Lagers - Standard American Lager Chris Thomsen - Special...

I had an excellent afternoon sampling a hand full of beers at Drake's Brewery barrel room yesterday. I headed up the 880 to San Leandro with friend Brady to find out what was on tap and we were not disappointed. Tucked behind and through the shadowy alleys of a colossal shopping mall, Drake's is not easy to find. But as we meandered our way between buildings a brilliant and holy light was shinning down on Drake's Barrel House tap room. Stepping inside this warehouse/taproom we approached a length of bar that fronted about 18 tap mounted to a large walk-in cooler. With only a couple of tables and the bar, the facility appeared mostly devoted to the dozens of barrels for the purposes of aging. Out on the patio were several more tables for enjoying the beer in the sun. Eager to quench our thirsts we ordered  pints of light lagers before launching into some of the barreled aged beers.  Brady got the pilsn...

Three simple words, crush, crush, crush. Wait, that's one simple word three times. Regardless, this is the number one thing you can do in your brewery to increase the amount of sugar you extract from you grain. I went from an efficiency of 75% to 85% with just that one step. I cranked down on the gap in my mill a little at a time over the course of several batches, watching my efficiency go up with each adjustment. My current gap setting is .029" (.737mm) on the narrow end of the mill and .055" (1.40mm) on the wide end of the mill. (My mill only adjusts on one end.) The rollers are somewhat smooth with fine ridges that run the length of each which adds to the severity of the crush. If you are relying on your homebrew store to crush the grain you order, ask if they will narrow the gap, or if not, to mill the grain twice. They should be accommodating but only after they warn you about a stuck sparge. Smile and nod politely. "Oh, but what about ...