Brooklyn Sorachi Ace

File Under: What I'm Drinking

Since moving to Roselle Park I've had to search out a new liquor store that caters to my sometimes eclectic tastes.  In Montclair I had the ever reliable Amanti Vino on Church Street, which carried a large variety of hard to find and artisanal brews that ranged from interesting to mind blowing to putrid and back again.  I was also lucky enough to live within a stone's throw of Glen Ridge Bottle King, which sported a decent craft brew section that included some of my favorite brands and brews.

After visiting some 'corner' liquor stores in Roselle Park and being thoroughly disappointed with what I saw - nothing more exotic than a Samuel Adams' Boston Ale - I came upon The Wine Depot in Union.  Finally, after a month I found a place that had a respectable craft brew section.

I looked around and found what I consider to be the hallmarks of a quality beer department.  There were local brews from New Jersey Brewing Company, Cricket Hill and Flying Fish.  I found a nice selection of Belgian lambics, a section of hard to find 22 oz. specialty brews and the entire lineup of many of the better known craft breweries such as Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, Stone and Brooklyn.

In the 22 oz. specialty section I came across a beer I had only previously heard of, but had never seen in the wild - The elusive Brooklyn Sorachi Ace.

Brooklyn Sorachi Ace

Brooklyn Sorachi Ace is a saison style ale, also commonly referred to as a farmhouse ale.  Originating in Belgium, saisons began as traditionally low alcohol ales (3.5% abv) and were mostly consumed by farmhands looking to quench their mid-afternoon thirst.  More recently, saisons are beginning to become staples of American craft brewer's repertoires, and have evolved in terms of flavor, color, ingredients and alcohol content (5% to 8% abv).

Saisons as a group, or subset, of ales are unusual in that they don't share common characteristics within the group, besides the use of Belgian candy sugar as an adjunct.  What they have in common is timing, as they are all traditionally brewed for consumption in the summer months.  The lack of boundaries affords the brewers great freedoms in achieving liquid nirvana, and the Brooklyn Sorachi Ace is the epitome of what a good saison can achieve.

Brooklyn Sorachi Ace derives its name from the Sorachi Ace Hop.  Relatively new to the hop scene, the Sorachi Ace Hop offers smooth bitterness with a spicy, lemony flavor.  Another unique aspect of this brew is the use of champagne yeast to referment the brew when it is bottled.  This gives the brew three fingers worth of bright white head and biting carbonation that persists long after the beer is poured.

From a flavor standpoint, the Sorachi Hops balance the +7% abv beverage with bitterness and spiciness that lend a drinkability usually reserved for weak brews and fruit beers.  This can be dangerous!  Halfway through the bottle I did a double take on the label to find out the alcohol content.  My mouth was telling me it was 5% while my brain was thinking it was significantly stronger.  Pale grains, white pepper and lemon dominate, with earthy yeast flavors peeking out here and there.  The only drawback is that it comes off a little sweat, which is nitpicking and could easily be considered a positive trait.

I will most definitely be back at Wine Depot to grab a couple more bottles of this fine brew.  At $9.99 per 22 oz. bottle, it is a little on the pricey side.  But with this flavor, and a sizable alcohol dose it is worth it.

Overall impression: A-


Burt

The Winter, The Move, Spring and other Things

File Under:  ...And We're Back

Brewing is more like high school algebra than riding a bike.  While both algebra and biking take considerable time and effort to learn and perfect, once one learns to ride a bike it will never be forgotten.  Algebra, on the other hand, sneaks out of your head as soon as you turn your back on it like some over-sexed teenager with a fake ID and a ground-floor window.  One won’t even realize it’s gone until it is called upon and it doesn’t answer.

Sneaking out!

When the ice begin to melt and plans started to be put into place to restart our brewing operations, I called upon my brewing knowledge and there was no reply.  I called again, and again I was met with silence.  As I searched my mind for any sign of life all I found was a pile of clothes under a blanket made to look like a sleeping child, and an open window.

I could kick myself for getting soft this winter.  My usual emersion in all things brewing was replaced temporarily by other concerns, not the least of which was my move from Montclair in Essex County, NJ to Roselle Park in Union County.  Moving is difficult enough as it is, but purchasing one’s first house is a life-enveloping grind and single-minded determination is required.  Not to make excuses, but there was no time.  No time to brew.  No time to read.  No time to remember.

My New House....Nah!

Hops and barely and water and yeast – they all still make perfect sense to me.  I’m drawing blanks on the specific calculations.  How much water am I supposed to use?  What temperature am I aiming for?  How do I adjust this recipe to get that result?  These questions, when added together, represent a new beginning for us and our entire brewing enterprise, as they are the sum total of all we forgot and must relearn.

The move has afforded us a great many things to look forward to this brewing season.  Our process will be greatly simplified and our total brew time will be reduced significantly.  In Montclair we were constantly dealing with logistical issues related to my apartment’s location on the third floor and our need to brew outdoors.  With no direct access to the backyard, everything needed to be carried down two flights of stairs, out the front door and around the side of the house to the backyard.  The word ‘everything’ includes, but is not limited to, twenty-plus pounds of grain, twenty-five-plus gallons of water, various forty-eight quart coolers, three propane tanks, the Banjo Classic propane burner, various brewer’s pots, camping chairs, a table, at least 5 buckets and other brewing ingredients and equipment.  Once everything was moved out and the brew was completed, everything then needs to be moved back indoors – from the backyard, around to the front of the house, up the two flights and into the apartment.

The new house has two pieces of standard equipment that will eliminate the need to move any materials any great length of distance: a deck and a shed.  Simply move all necessary items from the house or the shed to the deck and viola.  It’s a matter of two feet instead of seventy-five yards.

Annoying Neighbor!

The other thing the move has provided us is a sense of privacy that was largely non-existent in Montclair.  Specifically, we had a neighbor that liked to ‘help’ when we brewed.  He would sit and drink and talk and talk and talk and change the music and offer advice and tell anecdotes upon anecdotes.  It would have been very helpful had our goal been to miss our temperatures and brew bad beer under strenuous conditions.  Brewing, racking, bottling - it didn't matter.  If there was work to be done, he was there to muck us up.  So long, annoying neighbor!  My 7 foot privacy fence will keep all the Roselle Park wannabes from bugging us, and to that I raise my glass.  Cold?  Perhaps, but there is something to be said for operating under optimal conditions and the sense of peace that arises from hard work.  When that feeling ceases, I might as well be at real work.

In any case, both Doug and I are extremely excited to brew in our new digs.  Every aspect of our process will be greatly improved and will be much easier.  Brewing will be easier because of logistical reasons.  Fermentation will be easier because, as luck would have it, my 1900s era basement maintains a perfect fermentation temperature of sixty-eight degrees at all times.  Storage will be easier because it’s my house and I can store things where ever the hell I want!

As much as the new brewing venue has us all jazzed up, nothing has been as invigorating as the changing of the seasons.  Anyone in the North East this winter knows what I am talking about.  It was a winter that we will compare all up-coming winters to for a long time.  Snow, shovel, repeat.  Show, shovel, repeat.  Finally the winter has passed and we can get on with what we do best.  Brew it, drink it, repeat!

So what if I have forgotten the majority of what I learned last year?  Half the fun was in the discovery anyway, so I will gladly get back to the books.  It's beer season again...finally.

Balanced Beer?



Our first brew of the season will be ten gallons of Pershing Pale Ale, named for the street in Roselle Park the beer will be brewed on.  Pershing Pale Ale is brewed with the finest base malt from the UK, generous amounts of Crystal Malt from the US, sweet Munich Malt from Germany and Aromatic Malt from Belgium.  Amber in color, this pale ale is generously hopped with US Golding and Czech Saaz hops, and then dry-hopped with more Saaz for good measure.  Clocking at just over five percent alcohol, Pershing Pale Ale is at once approachable and complicated, malty and hoppy - a session beer and a sipper.  Balanced.

As beer season begins again my mantra becomes balance.  It is as important in life as it is in beer.  Since moving I have done little more than work, paint, build and spend.  This winter I focused on the house and working out and did little else.  I have calloused hands and I feel oddly healthy.  I’d never downplay the importance of a healthy lifestyle, but I will contend that a balanced lifestyle is as important to mental health as diet and exercise are to physical health.  Work balanced with play, rest balanced with activity and malt balanced with hops.  Here's to our health!

Burt

Brewing: Pershing Pale Ale 4/30/11

On Deck: Feastbier Toasted Ale ?/?/?

Primary Fermentation: Nothing

Secondary Fermentation: Nada

Winter, or Forced Time Off

FILE UNDER: Brrrrrrrrr!

Winter.  What a bummer!  It's a shame that up here in the Northeast each year begins on such a dissonant note.  I want a BEEP or a BOP or even a BOPE, but all I'm getting is BLARP and BLECH!  I begin every year in a state of suspended animation - a cold-induced coma from which only the thaw of spring can awaken me.

This year, in an attempt to combat the listlessness that conquers me every winter, I will be working out and eating right, playing a bunch of video games, cooking and enjoying the plethora of homebrew quietly aging in my closest.  If spring, summer and fall are for brewing than winter is most definitely for drinking and for thinking.

At first Doug and I thought that we might be able to somehow brew right on through the winter months.  We're tough, we're thought.  We can stand a half-day in the elements.  We can do it.  But, the reality is that we cannot do it, nor do we particularly want to.  Just look at that picture of my backyard.  Brrrrr!


My Backyard, all frozen!

What was once a perfectly functional and extremely convenient backyard brewery is now nothing but a bunch of snow banks and icy patches.

Other than obsessively checking the weather forecast for the odd winter Saturday or Sunday above 50 degrees, there is nothing much to do but wait for the warm spring breezes of April to usher out the cold, snowy, coma-inducing darkness of winter and replace it with the new covenant of spring.  With spring comes new adventures in brewing and the unqualified promise of progress.

What draws us to brewing - what compels us to brew over and over again - are the incremental gains we make with each new batch of beer - progress that can be quantified.  Advances in technique, recipes and process, not to mention simple repetition all lead to a better product.  Over time, all that progress leads to mastery, and mastery is what we desire.

In past blog posts I have been rather critical of our all-grain output, but the truth is that most of the beer we have made has been good.  With the exception of our first Belgian Red Ale, which fell victim to unintelligent hop usage and, sadly, for one reason or another didn't carbonate well, and our Stout, which didn't ferment due to sub-optimal fermentation temperatures, our all-grain output has been just fine.

We're not looking to make our best beer today or tomorrow, but rather to just make beer, and as we make beer to make gains as brewers.

To be sure, we are anxious to brew again.  We are pining and antsy and eager, and at times we are almost crawling out of our skin, but we are also wise enough to know that downtime is an integral part of the process.  If nothing else, it affords us the opportunity to assimilate our past experiences, to study and to gain further wisdom.

Peanuts cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz, once said, “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'”  This quote illustrates very clearly that which I am having trouble writing.  There is more to the process of brewing than brewing, but unless you step back and devote an adequate amount of time to figuring out what else there is you'll always have what you've always had.

When we began this adventure we had willpower, lofty dreams and determination.  Along the way we have picked up a good amount of knowledge and practical experience, but we are far from having mastered the art of brewing.  This winter I will ask, 'What can we do to improve?  How can we become more efficiant?  Where are we going wrong?'  Luckily, our forced time off offers us more than one day to comtemplate these questions and to do our best to seek out the answers. 

We will, as John Burroughs suggested in his 1910 essay, The Snow-Walkers, develop the tendinous part of our mind - the bone and sinew built in winter - to which we will add tissue and blood in warmer months.

Stay Warm,

mb

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Primary - Nothing
Secondary - Nothing
Kegs - Sweet Stout, Belgian Red 2, Toasted Ale
Bottles - Sweet Stout, Belgian Red 1, Belgian Red 2, Toasted Ale, Wheat Beer #8