Tag Archives: Long Island Beer and Malt Enthusiasts

Random ingredients, beer styles drawn from a hat, are the focus of a club’s unusual homebrewing competition

Jaclynn Brandi ready to pour beers at homebrewers group competition,

Jaclynn Brandi ready to pour beers at homebrewers group competition,

Inspired by Food Network’s “Chopped,” a homebrew club’s members concoct some beers with unusual flavors. Stout with vanilla and Mexican chilies tops them all.

By Alan J. Wax

Borrowing a page from the Food Network show “Chopped,” a Long Island homebrew club sponsored an unusual brewing competition that required entrants to brew a beer using key ingredients drawn from a hat.

The competition run by Long Island Beer and Malt Enthusiasts involved the brewing of various beer styles with random, often-unlikely ingredient combinations, testing the creativity of those involved.

LIBME logoThe contest got underway in early March, when ten teams were formed and a drawing held to determine who would brew a particular style and what flavors were to be added to each brew.

The combinations:

– Porter with wood chips and chocolate

– Amber ale with smoked malt and cherries

– Brown ale with tea and blueberries.

– Black rye ale with ginger and cinnamon

– Pale ale with coconut and blackberries

– IPA with hot peppers and peaches

– ESB with honey and coffee

– Rye IPA with orange peel and basil.

– Roggenbier with raspberries and licorice root

– Stout with vanilla and Mexican chilies.

Brewing ensued in April and club members judged the resulting beers at a June meeting using drinking pleasure as their guide instead of BJCP style guidelines. The winning beer is to be brewed at Great South Bay Brewery in Bay Shore, New York.

Some of the teams took liberties, One used Sambuca and Chambord liquors instead of licorice and raspberries, while others used such exotic additions as avocado honey, Ethiopian coffee, and ghost pepper chilies—among the hottest on the planet.

My team, led by Brian Giebel, a research chemist with a PhD and aspirations of becoming a professional brewer, concocted an Earl Gray-tea infused English brown ale with blueberries.  After an online team consultation about recipe formulation, the beer was made at Giebel’s garage-turned-home brewery in Smithtown, New York. Our recipe included 9 pounds of Maris Otter malt, 12 oz. of Special Roast malt and 8 oz. each of crystal 40L, Victory and chocolate malt and just 2 oz. of East Kent Golding hops. One-third oz. of Earl Gray team in a mesh bag was added at flame out for 5 minutes. Two pounds of frozen blueberries were added to the secondary after two weeks of fermenting with rehydrated SAF04 yeast.  The berries sat in the secondary for about 20 days and the beer was then kegged.

Despite my participation, the beer we produced was not my favorite – and not my least. I felt the Early Gray tea added astringency.  Giebel said he was pleased with our beer, noting that he would’ve left it home were he unhappy.

My favorite, however, was the porter with chocolate and wood chips, which finished third. Its brewers, led by Thomas Fox, who worked at Chelsea Brewing in New York City, substituted chocolate malt for the confection and used cherry wood chips soaked in Sailor Jerry spiced rum.  The flavors were reminiscent of a Black Forest cake.
Close behind, at least for me, was the pale ale with toasted coconut, blackberries and and raspberries. Though the berry flavor wasn’t pronounced, the beer’s biscuity malt and coconut notes reminded me of a coconut macaroon cookie.

Competition organizer Chris Kelly and his team brewed a rye IPA flavored with orange peel and basil along with Amarillo and Citra hops. It scored third.

The vanilla and pepper infused stout was the crowd favorite, finishing first.

Other brews were less successful. The Sambuca and Chambord infused beer came across as a high-alcohol beer cocktail that was undrinkable in my opinion.

“I was looking for an excuse to get people together to brew,” Kelly said explaining the rationale for the unusual competition. Working with Andrew Luberto, a national BJCP judge, he fine tuned the idea. He said the group would hold a similar competition again, adding that he hopes to improve on the concept.

 

 

 

 

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Great South Bay Brewery’s Bay Fest brightens a grey day with new brews

BAYFESTThe skies were threatening as Great South Bay Brewery’s Bay Fest neared its opening moment.  Crowds waiting for admission were herded inside the vast brewery in Bay Shore, Long Island, as a cast of 18 brewers beneath a white tent in Great South Bay’s back lot hung their banners and prepared their taps.

Inside the vast 39,000-square-foot brewery— two-thirds the size of a football field — live music from Tradewinds, a 12-person cover band with a powerful horn section, made the day more festive. So did the bits of sun that peaked through the grey clouds of May 11. At 1 p.m. yellow-shirted security personnel gave the okay and within minutes the tent was wall-to-wall with fest goers.  More than 1,000 tickets had been sold for the event, certainly the largest event of Long Island Craft Beer Week, a regional celebration of mostly local brews that continues through May 19.

And, it seemed as if all 1,000 attendees, many of them beer devotees, some not, had arrived at the same time. The professional brewers inside the tent were besieged for tastes of the more than 40 ales, lagers and stouts available.

The host brewery’s beers, not surprisingly, were ubiquitous throughout the fest. Under the tent and inside the brewery, Great South Bay’s Blood Orange Pale Ale, a refreshing summer brew, could be found on tap or on cask.  The cask version was especially enjoyable.

Inside the tent at Great South Bay Brewery's Bay Fest

Inside the tent at Great South Bay Brewery’s Bay Fest

Other brewers offered staples from their respective repertoires and a few experimental, one-off special brews.   For me, tasting new and unusual beers is the whole point of attending a beer festival.

Port Jeff Brewing, its tap-truck parked adjacent to the tent, offered attendees two variations on India Pale Ale, its citrusy Hop Star, which is brewed exclusively for Superstar Discount Beverage stores, and its more aggressively hopped sibling, Party Boat IPA.

Just steps away, Paul Dlugokencky, the owner-brewer of Blind Bat Brewery in Centerport, offered samples of a staple, Long Island Potato Stout, and its sweetish Spring Folly, an as-yet-unreleased beer in the Belgian ale style flavored with coriander.  Though billed as a springtime brew it will undoubtedly give as much refreshment come the summer.

Bay Fest Blind Bat

Blind Bat’s Paul Dlugokencky offers samples of this brews

Across the tent, brewer Joe Hayes of Black Forest Brew Haus in Farmingdale poured a beer called Fritz, a full-flavored, albeit somewhat murky, brew made with rye in the style of Steam Beer. The beer, Hayes said, isn’t yet available at the brewpub.

Meanwhile inside the brewery, hungry attendees lined up 30 deep for a chance to chow down on pulled pork sandwiches, smoked turkey legs or pretzel from Bobbique of Patchogue.

A less frenetic atmosphere and, for sure, the most interesting beers of the day, could be found in the brewery’s tasting room, where home brewer groups and brewery wannabes poured their wares.

Alas, despite good intentions, I did not get to sample Peaches and Scream, a brew made with scorpion chili peppers, among the world’s hottest, by homebrewer Mike Napolitano of Long Island Beer and Malt Enthusiasts. Warned that it would kill my taste buds, I had waited. By the time I was ready, however, the keg had been kicked.

But I did get the opportunity to sample the exemplary Irish-style gruit made by Tim Dougherty of the Brewers Collective, a homebrew group that has plans to brew commercially. The gruit, a style of beer brewed before in the days hops became a necessary ingredient, offered up a fruity, floral aroma followed by balanced sweet and savory notes on the palate from the inclusion of barley, oats, elderflower, yarrow root and juniper berries.

Matthew Titmus, right,  of Outer Brewing describes a beer to Barry McLaughlin, craft beer specialist at Clare RoseA different flower, camomile, made an appearance in a light wheat ale poured by Matthew Titmus of newcomer Outer Lands Brewing Co.  Outer Lands’ name stems from the geological nomenclature for Long Island, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Block Island. The brewery, as yet unlicensed and with no home, also poured its mouth-filling, bitterish Good Mojo IPA and a stellar, if understated, espresso stout.

Regrettably, by 3:30 p.m. with 90 minutes remaining in the fest, many brewers were out of beer and had packed it in.

While some attendees might have faulted the wall-towall crowd and the early finish to some kegs, Great South Bay Brewery’s first Bay Fest nevertheless was a good time event. With better planning and more beer (or smaller pours), it can only get better if  the brewery chooses to repeat it next year.

 

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Jan. 26 Long Island Nano Cask Festival to feature many one-off brews

2013-nanocaskfest (1)

One of my favorite small time beer fests is almost upon us — the Long Island Nano Cask Ale Festival.

Sponsored by Rocky Point Artisan Brewers, this Jan. 26 festival features a small group of small brewers pouring unique brews in a cozy venue, the North Shore Beach Owners Club House in Rocky Point. To keep it comfortable organizers plan to sell only 150 tickets. The festivities start at 3 p.m.

It’s an opportunity to sample exciting local brews—many of them one offs brewed especially for this event —without having to elbow your way to the tap.

What makes this event special is that the brews are served from casks with natural carbonation rather than forced carbonation. Our friends across the Atlantic call cask beers “Real Ale” and it was the traditional way of serving beer until forced carbonation came along. To the uninitiated, that’s why British beers have a reputation for being warm and flat.  To be honest, these beers are neither. A cask beer generally is served at cellar temperature and, if done right, can be downright creamy and flavorful.

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Scene from last’s year’s nano festival. (Rocky Point Artisan Brewers photo)

To be sure, there’s always disagreement among beer aficionados about which beers are best suited to be served on cask.  British-style beers and some Belgians work best, to my taste. Those extreme beers with tons of hops just don’t work. They need the carbon dioxide to offset all that bitterness.

In addition to the host brewery, other participants include Barrage Brewiing, Blind Bat Brewery, Ghost Cat BrewingGreat South Bay Brewing, Greenpoint Harbor Brewing, Montauk Brewing, Port Jeff Brewing and Spider Bite Brewing. Also, Long Island Beer & Malt Enthusiasts, a local home brew club will be pouring various homebrews, including an expresso-flavored cider from award-winning home brewer Bobby Rodriguez and Frank Filacchione’s rauch beer.

421410_338113679560636_1970184522_nAmong the commercial offerings  lined up are a vanilla smoked porter from Spider Bite, which also will pour an India pale ale brewed with a  new hop variety, Belma (described as having tropical citrus notes).

Blind Bat, meanwhile will pour a sweet potato saison, while the new Montauk Brewing Co. is bringing what it calls an eastbound brown ale fermented with espresso beans from Hampton coffee company

Port Jeff Brewing will be bringing a birch stout and a version of Schooner Ale flavored with cherries.

Barrage Brewing will have two casks: Ravens Shadow, an oaked rum raisin porter, which I believe they poured at last year’s nano fest, and FairyTale Red Hop Ale, an Irish red ale  dry hopped with Amarillo and citra hops.

Tickets, $40 each, include a tasting glass, unlimited beer samples and live music. Crazy Beans, of Miller Place, and Bite Me Cakes, of Sound Beach, will supply the eats. This year, as an added feature there will be a farmer’s market taking place, where produce will be available for purchase and growlers of beer will be sold during the final hour of event.

For tickets go to Rocky Point’s web site.

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