Beer Diary...

I've been using pellet hops in hop bags in the boil since the beginning of my brewing habit. I first purchased the medium sized nylon type from MoreBeer and soon discovered how limiting the size was. After the boil, the hops had expanded into a fist tight ball that pressed against the constraints of the bag. No me gusta! So, I started using 5gal. paint strainer bags a couple years ago to give the hops some more room to be exposed to the hot wort. My thinking and hope was that I could achieve a higher degree of flavor and aroma. You can go here to see other ideas or here to see my 'hop spider' solution . But there were problems with using these techniques, mainly that even with the larger bags the expanding vegetative mass appeared to seal off the flow of wort through the hops. I haven't done any studies to prove this so don't hold me to this theory but just from the looks of it I'd say I'm not getting my fair share of the available goodness from the hops....

Sometimes I find myself suffering from high anxiety. I woke up late the other night from a dream in which I was flying around the countryside sitting on a pillow that was strapped to some sort of small wooden bench. As I blissfully moved through the air I followed the line of the street far below. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn't need to follow the road, that I was free to cut across the country side on my flying bench to get to my destination and save time. This I did and my new route took me over a large grassy playing field where some older kids were throwing a ball back and forth. The ball ended up landing in my lap and before I could return it the kids started chasing me from below, yelling at me as if I intended to fly off with their beloved toy. Soon I began losing elevation and was floating dangerously close to the angry kids who were jumping up to catch me. As much as I willed myself to fly higher and faster I kept dropping like a leaky hot air balloon. Jus...

what to bring in. compare prices with mexican materials ingredients. A side by side cost analysis. compare shipping costs Nafta? b.s.

I'm at it again. This time as a professional brewer. We at Cerveceria Dos Aves are teaming up with the La Frontera restaurant here in San Miguel de Allende to present to the locals a three course meal featuring three seasonal Dos Aves ales. You may remember that our first joint venture was in 2009 and then again in 2010. I worked with Noren at La Frontera to create a beer/food pairing with some of my homebrewed beer. Those beers were brewed with a slant towards utilizing Mexican ingredients. Utilizing local agave in an American pale ale and brewing with hibiscus and tamarindo in a Belgian wheat to name a couple. This time around we are going with three of Dos Aves seasonal offerings. One, a pumpkin ale which most Mexicans have no idea about since they don't celebrate thanksgiving and subsequently are unfamiliar with the traditional pumpkin pie that north Americans are accustomed to. The other two are classics styles that we only have room at ...

Since this is the season for brewing pumpkin type beers I thought I'd chime in on my opinion about brewing these types of ales along with the process I use for my own version. First off, I don't particularly like the taste of pumpkin beers but I know a lot of people do like them or at least like the idea of them as a way to celebrate the Halloween/thanksgiving season. And so, since I am gleefully wanton of the income that comes from the sale of pumpkin type beers I’m all aboard the Ichabod Crane pumpkin train. Yes, I'd sell my soul for the resulting pesos that come from exploiting peoples desire for nostalgia and the taste of the season. But my soul doesn't come cheap and I have one rule as I exchange it for the mighty peso and that is that if I brew a pumpkin ale, it better be damn good beer! Most people associate the flavor of pumpkin pie with the spices that are used to make what is for the most part a pretty unexceptionally flavored squash. Cinnamon, all-spice,...

S o, where was I?... Oh yeah, thinking about how hard it is to brew when it's not a hobby. I'm writing this after cleaning up several gallons of IPA that overflowed a keg that I was racking while trying to mash in for another beer. Being pre-occupied with one project while trying to perform multiple tasks gets me into trouble often here at the new cerveceria. But who has time to focus on only one thing, this isn't a hobby any more. Oh how I long for the days of simply watching the kettle boil while enjoying a few homebrews. Now it's brewing double batches twice a week to achieve the needed 40 gallons of beer. Keeping my fingers crossed that the supplier will show up with the bottles I ordered so that I can transfer beer from kegs to bottles to be able to rack the fermented beer into the recently emptied kegs so that the fermentor is available for the next batch of beer. Rinse and repeat. Ah, hang on. I see that the R.O. water tank is overflowing. But I'm not...

As a professional brewery, Dos Aves entered five classic styles of beer in the 2013 Mexican brewers competition held in Mexico City. Out of the five we didn't place in any except for our English barley wine. That one brought home the gold . Entering this competition was a little expensive for me but at least we got something out of it. A plaque representing a superior product and some accolades from the brewing community. If this business continues to be successful, next year I could see us with a booth at the event and rubbing elbows with Mexico's better craft brewers. We'll see. P.S. Thanks to all of those people that recently contributed financially.

 D uring the festivities of Christmas in Mexico, when you are invited into the family homes you'll soon be offered a sweet fruit punch that is traditionally made for this season. The proportions of ingredients that create the flavors of this warm (yes, it's served warm off the stove top) concoction are as individual as the family that prepares it but all have in common the fruit available at this time of year along with  piloncillo (sugar) and spices. This tart and sweet drink is served to family members, guests and traveling strangers that may stop by the house during one of the neighborhood Christmas posadas . piloncillo guavas jamica Preparation begins by bringing water to a boil in a large olla and then introducing all of the ingredients one by one for as long as it takes to adjust the flavors to the cook's taste as the boil continues. As I was curious a...

I brewed the Dos Aves barley wine and just like the high gravity Russian imperial stout this barley wine required enough grain to completely fill my keggle mash tun. Once mashed in I had about half an inch of space at the top to run my sparge water. I have found that the more grain I pack into my mash the lower my efficiency comes in after a 45 minute sparge. In the case of this particular barley wine my efficiency was somewhere near 73% which is about 10 to 15% less than my average strength beers like my pale ale and dry stout. At the end of the sparge I was still drawing enough sugar from the grain to warrant salvaging some for a small beer. So, while the wort for my barley wine was coming to a boil I heated up some additional sparge water and rinsed another 4 gallons of wort from the grain. Believe it or not I ended up with a gravity reading of 1.035 from this effort and knew I had the potential for some additional beer. I set this aside while I finished brewing the barley...

Finally, we're somebody. The current issue of 'This' magazine is out and they've featured some information on the craft beer movement in Mexico and included a mention of Cerveceria Dos Aves in the effort. This could be it, this could be the 15 minutes of fame that Dos Aves has been looking for, or maybe our 15 minutes will come later and this is just and indicator that it's on its way. In any case the brief article includes Dos Aves as one of the up and comers in the craft beer scene here. Quoted next to pictures of the big boys of craft beer Tempus and Josefa I was excited to read: "The passion for craft beer at Dos Aves took its owner and master beer maker Mark Taylor to establish the Beer School in San Miguel de Allende. This beer-making firm is another great promise for the national market." Are we becoming mainstream? Maybe not quite yet but this is definately a sign that we're moving in the right direction. I could go so far as to say tha...

S ometimes I taste a beer and just can't seem to find the words or phrases that best describe my experience. I get bogged down because I just can't quite put my finger on what it is I'm tasting or smelling or feeling. This often happens with beers that have more bad qualities than good and I don't want to come across like a bad guy for not liking the beer. I ran into this dilemma with a recent tasting of a Mexican beer brewed by Agua Mala. Agua Mala's IPA Astillero IPA is brewed in Baja at Cerveceria Agua Mala (bad water) by Nathaniel Schmidt and his business partner Thomas Fernandez. Only in business for a couple years they are already producing 10 different styles of beers. But to my point, this is one of those cases where I'm having a hard time pinpointing a specific quality to this late hopped beer that just doesn't land well with me. As an attempt at a solution I decided to take a different approach. To name what this beer isn't may be a...

info on Branko including background and education( bachelors degree in ecology) and studies in Spain, Italy and France  - from Bosnia and returns every 9 months or so to visit his family follow up questions via email homebrewing interests to keep in context of blog - he likes to brew IPA and brown ales small wine batches 1bbl the first year now 4,800 bottles this year passion for wine- putting all his knowledge from education in EU. from the ground up Eu rules don't apply here because of the climate, soil, and most importantly the absense of desease which allows for organic growing and require only a single or at most two treatments of Sulfur the ranch, although only outside of San Miguel by 6 km. has less rain and less humidity. The grapes drop their leave and change due to the dryness here in San Miguel rather than from the low temperatures. lots of sun cause the acidity in the grapes to turn to sugar while cloudy days preserve the acidity. This acidi...

I n January I had this great idea to brew a strong beer to release as an anniversary special for Cerveceria Dos Aves during the Xmas season at the end of the year. I created a recipe for a barley wine. Using 60% R.O. water, a ton of grain, sugar and molasses I brewed for optimum fermentation and pitched my new favorite English ale yeast Whitelabs WLP013 . Two weeks later I racked to two kegs and let settle for a couple more weeks before bottling. After several months of conditioning in the bottles I tried a sample, it was delicious and would be a great beer to celebrate with when the breweries anniversary came around. However, last week I tried another sample from a different case to confirm that the beer was aging nicely only to discover that this particular beer had the flavor of what can only be described as Flemish'ish. The flavor represents the addition of acetobactor , a bacteria that provides the distinctive taste of vinegar that you typically find in Fl...

A fter two fantastic beer filled months in Santa Cruz I'm back in Mexico carrying on where I left off with the Cerveceria Dos Aves project . I hated to leave Santa Cruz, my good friends and homebrewing compadres, the beautiful weather and beach scene, the vibe and of course the awesome craft beers that make the Mexican craft beer scene pale in comparison. I spent more than I should have of my personal budget on beer but I was so starved for the quality craft beer that the States has to offer that I couldn't help myself. From the hoppy malty deliciousness of Drakes Denogginizer and Knee Deep's Hoptologist to the local sour scene at Sante Adairius Rustic Ales I immersed myself deeply knowing that soon I would return to a country that has a lot of ground to cover to reach the level of quality and creativity that seems to be a standard in the brewing industry in California. Of course my mission here in San Miguel is to do my part to help propel the craft beer mo...

Please check out my new platform for raising money for the new brewery project Cerveceria Dos Aves. If I can make my goal I know this project will be successful. Thanks for all your support in the past.

It's hard to ferment a lager at the proper temperatures here in San Miguel. Although I'm able to chill the wort down into the low to mid 50's f. with a plate chiller and post (ice bath) chiller, without a cold room or jacketed fermentor I'm helpless against the impact of the ambient temperature during the fermentation period. I considered this problem and decided to go ahead anyway and brew a version of my previously successful Pabst Blue Ribbon clone . My original recipe that I brewed while back in California is made up of 75% 2-row, 3% Munich malt and 22% Minute Rice and I generally followed the same recipe and lager yeast with one fairly large exception. In this case I used short grain white rice that I pre-cooked and then mixed in with the mash rather than going the easy course by using Minute rice. I also substituted a small percentage of crystal #20 for the Munich malt I used in the original. I decided that my best approach for brewing this beer down here was ...

I like North Coast's 'Old Rasputin' Russian imperial stout . It's a good representation of the style that isn't crazy alcoholic and allows for easy consumption. So, when I developed the recipe for my RIS I kept Old Rasputin in mind and focused on big roastiness with balanced drinkability. I use 85% domestic 2-row and a mix of roasted and Munich malt for the remainder of the grist. I don't use any caramel malt in this brew but shoot for straight forward roasted flavor. The bittering is about a 1 to .75 ratio with a 60, 15 and 1 minute additions that imparts a small amount of citrus/pine from a charge of centennial hops.  Russian Imperial Stouts Although this beer is extremely young (8 weeks) I couldn't wait to sit down with friend and The Beer Company owner Antonio to do a taste comparison with Old Rasputin. Our focus was to evaluate the differences between the two beers and come to a consensus on improvements needed for future batches. In the pi...

I enjoy my beers on the dry side and regularly use well attenuating yeast to ferment with for the most part. My go-to's are Safale US05 , and Whitelabs Wlp001 and Wlp500 , but on occasion I will still end up with beer that is under-attenuated as the yeast leaves behind unfermented sugars when it drops out of solution and goes dormant. I scratch my head confused and frustrated by these results after feeling like I made sure I did everything right. My fermentation temperatures were within the optimum range and consistent and the wort was well aerated. I'm convinced that all of my brewing practices were perfect for a complete conversion only to be disappointed when the yeast wasn't able to complete its task. But there were a couple lessons that I had not learned yet and they needed to be addressed. Two main reasons that under attenuation occurs that I wasn't considering with the seriousness that it deserved was the accura...