Oh yeah... the Evil Eye-PA!

In our first IPA news... fermentation like whoa. It looks to have finally died down and we are looking at an ABV of around 6.8% right now... we'll see if that keeps up.

We moved it from secondary fermentation with dry hops into another carboy to allow some sediment to settle. This is the "gunkiest" beer that we have brewed yet, and it's unbelievable the amount of sediment and yeast that has settled to the bottom so far, and somehow more keeps showing up!

The dry hopping and extra yeast really seems to have added some interesting layers of flavor, but right now the nose is VERY heavy on the grapefruit. We are really excited to see how this turns out in the end with some carbonation and some clarity, because the color is absolutely fantastic at this point.

As always, we'll keep you posted as we go along, right now I'm just getting ready for the Top Chef season finale... GO KEVIN

Santa Claus is coming to town

In addition to brewing the chocolate oatmeal stout and transferring the IPA to yet a third carboy (more on that later), we also bottled our Christmas Ale (name to be determined, suggestions welcome, comment away people!!)

In the end, we have 3 swing top lite bottles and about 14 22oz bottles of the Christmas ale currently carbonating with some priming sugar. We also took 2 liters and force carbonated with CO2 and chilled it that night... and wow, it was really good! Definitely the most interesting beer we've brewed to date and BY FAR the most experimental. Somehow, the cinnamon, nutmeg, flaked oatmeal, vanilla, honey, maltodextrin, and oak chips came together and was really refreshing. We even got the thumbs up from Sonia, which is apparently not easy (or so Brad says...)

In about 2 weeks we hope for the Christmas Ale to be properly conditioned and ready to drink... at which point we'll be giving out some bottles to friends to try and give us some feedback!

Beers we drank tonight:

Mayflower Thanksgiving Ale - just delicious. Brad and I are both completely enamored with Mayflower's beers. So glad they are starting to bottle their seasonals so I can enjoy them at home.

Olfabrikken Porter - Holy smokiness, the scandanavian countries really know how to brew porters.

Founders Backwoods Bastard - Woody, sweet, warming, delicious. Founders is magical when it comes to wood aging beers, and one of my favorites didn't disappoint again in this year's run.

Sissy Bitch Stout

"What's that you're drinking over there?"

"Oh, this? It's a sissy bitch stout."

This was a theoretical conversation Brad and I had involving the naming of our new stout. In one of the more disastrous filled brewing evenings in recent memory, a few highlights include:

1) splashing the pot when the grain bag got stuck on the kettle thermometer... all over the kitchen. I think we got about 3 feet of distance on a few splashes

2) my face having a near death experience... while stirring in the LME to the boil, the can slipped through my hand splashing the boiling water into my face. luckily, due to him being tall (bastard), brad was spared.

3) clogged ball valve in transfer to the carboy. not once, not twice, but about 8 times. damn cocoa nibs.

In good news... my face is fine after a brief scare involving some red leopard-eque spots for about an hour or so.

We're watching and listening, I promise

So for those of you out there who read this regularly and have voted on the beer... let it be known that we are paying attention!

Brad and I will be back brewing this evening, making our first attempt at a stout. The plan is to age it with some Chocolate covered cocoa nibs (Tazo, yay for promoting local companies) and try to get a nice chocolate undertone. This is the last beer we've actually planned at all, and from here on out, will probably be brewing specifically to fill a need for a friend throwing a party or bbq or general hootenanny.

The IPA is also hopefully done fermenting and we can rack it to another carboy to let some sediment settle and hope for a nice golden color with at least an attempt at clarity.

I'm sure we'll have a couple fantastic beers too... going to start using this as a bit of a forum for our beer thoughts and musings

Dry Humping the Dry Hops

Quick check in with a few developments...

The Christmas Ale is currently in secondary fermentation, with some french oak chips might I add. Why? Why the heck not.

The IPA is also in secondary fermentation... but the gravity reading and a quick taste let us know that there is a lot more fermenting still to go. Pitched some more american ale yeast into the carboy after transfer, and will let it sit for a while longer.

Also in the IPA second fermentation is a generous helping of dry hops. Chris, a fellow accupuncture student with Brad, had a brief special moment with the carboy after the dry hops were added.

Ended the night with a nice cellared bottle of 2009 Founders KBS... so glad to stil have some more of that left.

Doc Frankenstein Wishes He Was Me

So this Christmas Ale is beyond a work in progress/experimental awesomeness.

So far, things included:
1) Pure Clover Honey
2) Massive amounts of Maltodextrin
3) Oatmeal straight from the can
4) Brad's blood, sweat, and tears

3 of those 4 things may or may not be actually true. We plan to finish this off with some vanilla, some cinnamon, and some nutmeg. Really, we just want to make us happy to celebrate Santa a little bit too early tonight and get everyone else to join us when it's ready to drink in a few weeks.

Shalom. Merry Christmas. Happy Kwanzaa. Etc.

Beer is delicious in any religion. Or so I'm told.

Our New Favorite Beer? What the hell is Bavarian Wheat?

So, I've lived in Boston now since 2001. Brad got here in 2007. That's 8+ years for me and 2+ for Brad for a combined time of over a decade.

In that decade we have tried probably every beer manufactured in the General Massachusetts and Greater Boston Area between breweries, brewpubs, and craft brewers.

This week, Samuel Adams released their new Barrel Room Collection Beers, and yesterday I picked up the Stony Brook Red Ale and New World Tripel from Gordon's in Watertown (Shout out to Joe, the new beer guy if he ever sees this). The bottles were 11.99 apiece.

I have spent 12 dollars many times in my life. However... none of them have probably been this delicious. Sam Adams, our hats are off to you. We didn't know you had it in you, but I couldn't be prouder. The Barrel Room's Stony Brook Red is the best area beer that I have ever had, and that's not just some stupid superlative. In fact, we plan on making a trip to the brewery to try to buy as much as we can.

To Conclude:

Dear Boston/Massachusetts Breweries,

While Pretty Things held the title for the past few months, the new head of the pack for the area is Sam Adam's Stony Brook Red. Good luck to you all in surpassing the new leader, it's going to take some serious work, and I couldn't be happier to see you all try.

P.S. - Mayflower, your Thanksgiving Ale is absolutely awesome, and I only wish you had a few days to stand up top before Sam came along and beat you.

As good as Bad gets

Oh the brewing craziness.  We decided to try a few new styles tonight.  Dan has crafted a Hoppy High Alcohol IPA that smells, looks and feels incredibly promising.  Then we are gonna do some mad scientist shit and create a  Christmas ale with a variety of random ingredients, leftover grains, and pure inspiration.  Good times are bein had here at Apotrope Ale house (recently renamed Evil Eye brewing because nobody could remember the name).  Updates to come.

New Beer Name... I think

So I'm sitting here in my sweet patchwork pj pants lamenting an absolutely awful night of boston sports. To cheer myself up, decided to think of a name for our forthcoming brew this weekend, and here's what I've got so far:

Evil Eye-P.A.

Other random name ideas...
Shamrock Stout
Dreamcatcher Dunkelweizen
Wishbone Wheat/Wild Ale

Thoughts? Questions? Queries? Comments? Concerns? Cookies?

What's next on tap?

During the kegging efforts, discussions on the next beer really got going, as well as us getting more into the mathematics of beer creation including expected IBU's, SRM (color), and expected ABV based upon the malt bill.

Brad and I have decided our next brew will be a crisp IPA. All of our beers to this point have been darker and maltier beers, so we figure it's time to jump into the hops world and get a golden IPA for our friends afraid of things with color. We have some great ideas to put a little bit of a twist on your typical IPA, and may even experiment a bit with some oak chips.

As a side note, ultimately for tasting purposes and brainstorming with friends, we will be serving our beers in black glasses (sommelier style) as so that people can't tell the color and pre-judge beer before it hits their palate. Once they decide if they like it or not... we'll look into some color.

Time to get interactive for the folks out there reading this! Feel free to throw out some ideas of what you think we should make in the comments section. Brad and I are brewing for us right now and brewing beers that we want to drink (which we will always do and is our main philosophy), but that said, we want to make sure they are what you want to drink too!

A Round of Applause for Brad

Just to give credit where credit is due, Mr. Cox has recently been spearheading the brewing efforts. I suppose it's just a tad bit a function of the fact that all of the equipment is at his house, but regardless, kid has been going non stop with the most recent 3 beers brewing 2 of them on his own and transferring all of them to secondary carbonation and kegging 2 of them.

And to think what he might be capable of if he wasn't in the midst of studying for boards to go be an acupuncturist. Let is also be known that he has yet to stick me with a needle.

HOORAH For New Yeast

Vindication is glorious.

After several batches of mediocre mouthfeel and an odd "wateriness" as our friends described it in our brews, we switched yeasts and it made one hell of a difference.

We spent yesterday afternoon cleaning a relatively insane amount of carboys and transferring from second fermentation to kegs all in the name of good beer. Currently, 3 beers are kegged are waiting for the CO2 to carbonate thoroughly to be chilled and served.

They are (cue drumroll....)

Rabbits Foot Red (V1) - 6 different malts, 3 different hop varieties with multiple boil times, and the new yeast. It's very red, and it's potentially very awesome coming in with an ABV of around
5.6%

Break a Leg Brown (V4) - A bit of a hybrid brown/amber ale that Brad has been working on since our first brew messing with the malt and hops bill. The new yeast appears to have made all the difference and brought out the coffee tones. ABV around 5.4%

Pragmatic Porter (V2) - New malt bill, and potentially a little lacking on hops, and sadly, definitively our last beer with the old yeast strain. We had these all side by side, and this one had that same wateriness we've experienced, but the taste is getting there...

WE ARE ALIVE AND WELL!!

This just in... Brad and I are indeed well and alive and back brewing again.

Without getting into details, some not so cool life things happened over the past couple of months and we were a bit distracted, but all is at least well enough to get back into what we love to do so much; brew beers and make friends happy.

NEW BEER ALERT!
The first version of Rabbit's Foot Red is currently in primary fermentation. A blend of 6 types of malt and 3 types of hops at different stages should hopefully give it a nice "balanced" flavor, but who knows, it's the first run! With a little bit of luck, it will come out a nice copper ale, sort of the same color as an irish red but with a lot more to it. It originally started out as a quasi-Fat Tire clone and then as I was in the brewing supply store decided to play around the malt bill and hop bill and basically make it my own. It's like American Idol, for beer, only not.

Plan is to let this one sit for 2 weeks, then do our first secondary fermentation and filter it again after a bit of a brewing mishap...

Brewing this one was mainly a breeze, people weren't kidding when they told us practice will make us better. That is, of course, until it was time to transfer from the brew kettle to the carboy. Usually the easiest process of them all, Brad managed to misplace our funnel (he left it at a friends house after bringing it over to help him with brewing a batch) and as per usual, hilarity ensued.

We tried using a coffee filter. No luck. Carboy hole was too small.

We tried using a wine filter and funnel. No Luck. The flow was so minimal it would have taken hours and the hop sediment made it nearly impossible.

Few other failed efforts ended with my brilliant idea to sanitize an ale pail with a spigot, and use a strainer to get it in there. It worked... however... due to sanitation worries, Brad was forced to hold the bucket the entire time the brew kettle was emptying until it was full with 4.5 gallons of wort. It was his buddhist training for the day.

Buffett was then sure to lick any spilt beer off of the floor, because that's what he does.

BREAK A LEG BROWN, VERSION 4
At least, I think it's version 4... it might be 3, or 2 after 1, 1a, 1b, etc... but anyway... new version in the carboy! After some brews which we liked but always found to be a bit mediocre, I made the stunning observation of "maybe we should try a new yeast" to which Brad responded "HELL YES!" where he then proceeded to not only change the yeast, but double the amount. High aple pie in the sky hopes for this one people. Those of you who tried the last version in the bottle... it was a pretty easy drinking ale that we really liked. Hopefully this one is a bit amped up but still incredibly easy to drink.

Next up! Back to the porter (which will be entirely brand new) and figuring out a Pale Ale before getting ready to lager in the cooler months.

Our hope is to have 5 beers that we can call ours and make routinely come spring time;
Break a Leg Brown Ale - malty and easy drinking brown ale
Rabbits Food Red - A hoppy, but manageable ABV version of an amber/copper ale
Pragmatic Porter - a tasty american style porter for us to play with and add coffee and chocolate
Lucky 13 Lager - our "fizzy yellow beer" for all those scared by beer with colors
To be named pale/golden ale - not sure yet, probably figure that out this week

Long enough? I say yes.

Greetings from the land of beer!

So, the grains are currently in the boil for our next batch of beer-a-rew-ski, this time it's going to be some sort of light ale only not really because light ales are kind of wussy so we decided to add a little bit of brad and dan manliness because we like to do things like chew nails nad put up drywall on our free time.

Tonight we introduce our newest member of the brew crew, ms. amber hodge.  amber thus far has proved herself incredibly valuable, taking buffett on a walk while we sanitized some equipment, and looking up what distilled water was.  The distilled water convo went as follows, in a fun numerical ordering form to show sequence!

1) i look and realize brad is using distilled water instead of spring water

2) i say something like "distilled water, is that a potent potable?  i mean, can you drink distilled water?

3) amber laughs at me

4) brad gets a concerned look on his face

5) amber continues to laugh at me, and asks brad if when he got the water, it was next to other water or clorox

6) brad laughs, and then amber joins some more, saying to me "ha ha, yes, let's sell water next to other water that people can't drink"

7) brad stops laughing, looks into the kettle, and says, "wait, are we sure we can drink this? it has a weird blueish tint"

8) i feel slightly vindicated, only i think i know what's about to come

9) amber gets on the laptop, and looks up distilled water, and just mentions how it's water that's it's water, that is of course distilled, and is of course drinkable

10) amber goes, "oh wait, this brewing site says not to use distilled water"

11) i feel a bit vindicated again, but i still kind of know i cant win as soon as;

12) brad pulls out a bottle of gypsum and basically announces, "not to worry, i have gypsum!!"

13) amber continues to read, and lets us know that indeed, gypsum can cure the ills of brewing with distilled water

14) i just used 13, is that bad luck?  probably not.  this isn't some lame apartment building where people refuse to admit the 13th floor exists by calling it the 14th floor,  but really, we all know it's actually the 13th...

15) i should probably stop this list now. 

Summary; i'm a slight idiot on occasion.  If you know me, you already know this. and distilled water is totally drinkable.

Ready?  i mean seriously, are you ready for this?!?

A PICTURE!!!

That's right, this post should have a picture up top.  In said picture, you can see buffett, sitting at brad's feet, wanting to longingly drink the beer boiling on the stove.

more to come later?  potentially.

amber made strawberry shortcake.  it's f'ing delicious.

And the Brewing Continues. Well this raining cold weather might be crappy, but it does have one good side effect.  It makes for perfect brewing weather.  All righty folks based upon all the useful comments from the party last night, I have brewed a second version of our original brown ale.  I have added some more hops and tweaked the type of sugars used, to give it more body.  

The night went like pretty much every other brewing night, complete with disasters, more flooding and hilarious dog interventions.  This time however it was just me and Buffett because Dan was at a concert and missed the craziness.  Buffett again tried to eat the recipe.  But this time it is because I decided that it was good luck, and I held it right over his head until he went for it.  He also started licking the beer hose that I had spent 20 minutes sanitizing.  Have I mentioned this dog loves everything to do with beer? Then out of some odd universal energy shift, I became very clumsy and started injuring myself.  This started with a steam scalding and ending when I knocked myself on the floor and got a gash in my head from a cabinet door.  I am a superstitious man and I believe that if you truly want to make something great, then you have to be willing to pay the price and sacrifice.  Haha, I think that knocking myself out in search for the perfect beer recipe counts as paying my dues. The beer is in the fermenter and it smells beautiful, so with a little magic and some good sanitation we might have a good beer on our hands in 2 weeks.  We have one name that is the frontrunner for this particular beer, and that is 'Break a leg Brown Ale', cleverly thought up by Dee last night.  If you have any more great name suggestions send them our way.  Night everyone, hope the rain doesn't get you down.  I recommend having a beer and kickin back.  

Burn Baby Burn

And the Brewing Continues!  Tonight the specialty is a really dark Porter that I created the recipe for.  I take it as a good sign that while holding the recipe, Buffett tried to jump up and take it out of my hand and eat it.  Considering that Buffett ate the recipe of our first beer, and that it came out quite nice, I hope that this pattern continues.  Highlights of the night:

-Dan spills beer on himself  ( auspicious sign)

-Dan burns his forearm

-We drink some ridiculously good beer while brewing

-Dan burns his fingers

-We drink more ridiculously good beer 

-The Beer boils over and gets the flour all sticky

-I forget what I am doing and almost don't add the second round of hops

-We drink even more ridiculously good beer 

-We create lake Cox in my kitchen when we lose track of one of the hoses for the wort chiller. Luckily the towels came out quickly and we also used Buffett to mop up the floor, which saved the night.

-We get to watch as our beer gets poured into a fancy new clear carboy so we can watch the fermentation happen.

-We drink EVEN more ridiculously good beer.

We'll let you know how it tastes in 2 weeks.  Keep your fingers crossed

Explanation

So it dawned on me that I should probably explain the origins of the name Apotrope Alehouse.  Well, here's the deal:

Bit of background for you... I for years have been thinking up fun names for beers or brewpubs because let's face it, it has always been a fun and welcome distraction.  I in fact even submitted the name Apotrope Ale to the beeradvocate "name the beer" competition they had... but had unfortunately not read the rules entirely and submitted that with a few other names as well more than likely disqualifying myself.

I generally get annoyed at the lack of creativity and originality in beer naming, but over the past couple years some breweries have really been doing a fantastic job with awesome artwork and fun naming conventions (a la Southern Tier as a quick example).

So, why Apotrope?

In ancient greek times, when citizens would drink they would usually paint pictures of the evil eye on their drinking vessels for good luck and to help ward away evil spirits.  The evil eye, also known as the apotropaic eye, is a symbol of good luck, and hence, an apotrope (generally seen as a good luck charm).   

With that in mind, I thought it could lead to great stories to tell about a beer, and a phenomenal logo/tap handle/naming convention system.  Everyone loves a good story, and an evil eye design for a logo is something I've considered using a pint glass as the iris or a hop flower (clearly... that's just in my head.  I have no art skill.   We have friends with art skills.  Yay friends!!) With the help of some more friends (Brad and I know people, we're kind of a big deal and have many leather bound books) just tossing out names we've already come up with potential ideas such as Rabbits Foot Red, Lucky 13 Lager, Pragmatic's Porter, and my personal favorite, the Knock on Wood series for anything we end up doing involving aging in wooden barrels.

So that's the story.  Hopefully you like it and think it's "cool"... not "rad"... or whatever the kids are saying these days and, well, "get it".

Upon further review...

pulled the beer out of the freezer last night with a good chill on it, and WOW!!

yes, WOW!!

WOW as in holy crap that's sweet.  The carbonation appears to have kicked the sweetness into high gear a bit, but it's still drinkable.  I'm sure much worse has been made in batch 1 of someone's brewing life.

Theories:

-Too much sugar

-Not enough yeast to properly "eat" the sugar that was present

-Pyhtagorean

-Not enough filtration between the boil and the fermenter

-Relativity, where c is of course the speed of light in a vacuum

-The carbonation needs more time to get all the way through and sit for a bit to help condition the beer

-Barney Stinson is the greatest sitcom character since George, Kramer, and the parents Costanza

We'll see what happens in the coming week.  If all else fails, it doesn't suck, so friends, be ready to come over and have a beer and tell us what you think went wrong or would like changed...

ps - i also like ellipses... a lot... potentially even more than oxford commas...

The Apron

Brad just read the post I made.  He's still wearing the apron.  He suggests I change the wording of the last post as it sounds a bit awkward and more towards the homosexual side (which i clearly stated it was the opposite).  

facts are facts brad.  he will learn to deal with them.

other facts:

-andrew horowitz is awesome

-chocolate chip is the best type of cookie

-we've had a mixture of Parachute, The Script, and Guster playing in the background all night and it's glorious

-i heart the oxford comma, a lot

Keg Stands? Yes please.

Proper?  No

Awesome?  Yes

Sanitary?  Probably not

In a modified keg stand of sorts brad just had the first sips of carbonated beer.  yeah yeah, you're supposed to let it sit to get it all the way through, etc etc.  It's been about an hour.  So I shook the keg a bit, and lo and behold, carbonated beer!!!

modified keg stand you say?  i poured a glass of beer after attaching the spigot, which is now chilling in the freezer by the way (after it formed a head!!!) and then unattached the hose, and poured what was in there directly into brad's mouth.  yep, heterosexual manliness at it's best.  did i mention brad was wearing a red and white striped apron through this process?  i'm not even kidding.

You know what's fun?

pretending to know what we are doing!!!

so Brad went out and got a kegging system today for us.  that's right, we're kegging beer to start, we do things right around here...

after some serious trials and tribulations, we THINK, repeat, THINK, we have managed to carbonate the beer in a 5 gallon corny keg.  I imagine we'll really find out in a week when we go to pour our first carbonated alcoholic beverage.

It appears we somehow made a nice mild ale?  Let's see what happens.  We tried some straight out of the fermenter and it wasn't quite brown, nor quite amber, but somehow in the middle and weighing in at about 3.9% abv.  On the upside, no off tastes!  A little light on the flavor profile, but hey, it has a lot of that "drinkability" that bud light always talks about.   Yes I just said bud light in a somewhat non-derogatory way, that may be the first and the last time that happens.  ever.

at some point i'll figure out how to add pictures to this thing.

brad plans to brew tomorrow by himself.  here is to hoping he does it and pulls off something good.  then again, he just checked the weather.  it's supposed to be 78 and sunny.  i don't have high hopes.

AHHH!!! BEER!!!

Alright, the first batch... EVER!!!... is in the primary fermenter.   Brad and i understand it may suck ass, but you know what?  eventually it will be alcoholic, and we have nice enough friends that will drink it with us anyway... and if all else fails we'll ship it up to bryce and he'll make some sort of bbq sauce out of it.  

So, here's the deal;

2 oz black patent

1 lb crystal 40

topped off w/ chocolate to 1.5 lbs

1/4 lb coffee

willamette 1oz

cascade .5oz

6.6 lbs LME Briess Sparkling Amber

1 lb golden dme

hopped w/ 1/3 of hops during boil, another 1/3 during last 10 minutes with 1 lb maltodextrin and 2 pinches of irish moss

remainder of hops pitched with 11.5 grams of yeast 

let's just say none of that measuring was entirely scientific, today is the day we see if "magic" can happen.  I was talking with Will Shelton a few weeks ago and he told me himself making beer is half magic, and half sanitation.  Well, we sanitized the shit out of stuff, now lets see some magic happen!

Buffett with not 1, but 2 t's

can't lie, since buffett read our first post, he's been barking incessantly to let me know that I spelt his name wrong.  Listen, I'm not perfect, I make mistakes, Buffett, it won't happen again.

First Day...

So it's our first day trying to make some beer... and of course Buffet ate the recipe last night.  I'm not even kidding.  I'll upload a picture later, but Brad's dog took our recipe out of a book and ate it.  Luckily... we were able to put it back together... so we may have to name it Buffet's Brown Experimental Ale or something like that, which lets face it, isn't entirely creative or awesome.

Other things of note:

-I soaked myself trying to fit a wort chiller onto the sink.  Half of me is wet, the other half is dry.  I'm like a badly cooked steak only not nearly as tasty 

-The brewhouse forgot to send a top to our fermenting bucket.  This seems a rather vital piece of equipment and all... so yeah, we need to go buy a bucket top this afternoon

-I really want a cookie right now

-Were going to celebrate  by cracking open a bottle of Ithaca TEN as soon as we actually get started

Also... how the hell does one sanitize something?  All I know is that if I get this stuff on me I may melt wicked witch style according to the label, but I suppose worse things have happened.