Beer Diary...

 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...