Genesee Heritage Pack

So most of the time as I cruise the beer section at Wegmans I always look for craft beer. but every once in awhile I like to buy mass produced/large brewery beer. Today I ran across Genesee’s Heritage Collection bottled in the old fashioned stubby bottles. I just couldn’t pass them up.

As far as mass produced beer from large commercial breweries from the US I like Genesee the best and then probably Old Milwaukee. I detest Budweiser products, the rice adjuncts that they use equal headache in a bottle for me, then Coors tends to taste like piss water to me, so if I’m buying domestic that is not craft I’ll normally reach for Genesee.

Plus I always feel good buying Genesee because I am supporting the local economy, because it is brewed right in Rochester, which is a short hop from our house.

This Heritage Collection has the following great slogan:

“Old Fashioned Beer & Ale Goodness”

Now c’mon that is just awesome. So tonight I will polish off a couple of stubbies and enjoy some local beer.

Just look at that itty bitty bottle, it’s so cute. It’s just begging me to drink it. Well, I hate to see anyone beg, so here we go…

Keep ‘em tippin"’

Christmas Gift Beer…

I’m always proud when people ask me if I can brew some beer for them to give as a present. It has happened every year for about three years. I have brewed beer for a co-worker’s husband’s Christmas gift, and her brother’s birthday, and now I have been asked if I can brew up another Christmas gift beer for an Aunt.

Now I know I am short on time to brew a beer and have it bottle ready for Christmas, but I am up to the challenge. So I asked a few simple questions. First, light or dark? and second what style of beer? My answers were “light” and “we normally drink Coors Light”. I know, I know Coors, don’t judge there is routinely Old Milwaukee in my fridge for L Bird and I in a pinch.

So with those guidelines I set about looking for something that was light and fairly neutral and the final guideline was that the ingredients needed to be in supply at the local homebrew store. I finally settled on a nice “lawnmower beer” of Cream Ale. Now don’t panic, this is a homebrewed cream ale so it won’t taste anything like the delicious but always dangerous Genny Cream Ale.

Here is the simplified recipe, adapted from Northern Brewer’s Cream Ale Kit.:

3 lbs of Extra Pale Dry Malt Extract

3.3 lbs of Munton’s Extra Light Malt Syrup

3/4 lbs of Honey Malt (crushed)

1/4 lb of Belgian Biscuit Malt (crushed)

1 1/2 oz Colombus Hops (Pellets)

Safale US-05 Yeast

Steep the Honey and Biscuit malts at 170 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove the grains, bring to a boil. Once the wort is rolling at the dry malt extract, malt syrup and 1 oz of hops. Boil for 50 minutes, then add 1/2 oz of Colombus hops. Boil wort for 10 more minutes, remove from heat and chill wort. Transfer the wort to the fermenter vessel, pitch yeast and top up with water to 5 1/2 gallons. Ferment to dryness.

So that’s what am I am doing while I am typing this, but I thought I would share this.

Yeah, do you see that? I see a smiling face on a misshapen head. I’m not sure if I’m creeped out or if it is that old Benjamin Franklin saying “Beer is proof God wants us to be happy.” and it’s a happy face. Or who knows as long as we are talking religion if I look again it could be a dove with the olive branch below it. Ah hell, maybe its just a sign this is going to be one great beer.

Yeah, that’s what I’m going with. Well I’m off for my final hops addition, so until then keep ‘em tippin’!

Pretty Things Jack D’or Saison Review

Its been quite awhile since I have done a proper beer review. I have been cutting back my drinking for a bit and on the occasions when I’ve had a social drink or two it has always been from a big producer. So I decided it was time to do a review, which brings me to Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project.

As I was looking for a beer, I have to say I was drawn in by the artwork and name on the label. I thought that “Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project” sounded pretty cool and home grown. Once I grabbed the bottle and read a little bit I was won over. The owners introduce themselves, tell us they draw their own labels, and brew their own beer in their tiny and creative brewery. Awesome, I love supporting small start ups. So on with the review:

Appearance: It pours a pale straw color and is slightly hazy. The head quickly dissipated, but the beer was very effervescent.

Aroma: The initial aroma was citrusy with some spicier notes. There were also some wheat and yeast aromas that were reminiscent of a hefeweizen .

Taste: It has a clean and crisp taste that gives way to a very slight bitterness. It was light, easy drinking and refreshing.

Overall: This is a nice beer, it’s drinkability is great. This is supposed to be a Saison which is traditionally a farmhouse ale style that is pretty open to interpretation. Their interpretation is nice, but it is nothing that stands out amongst the crowd. That is not saying that it is not a good beer, because it really is fantastic, but it isn’t going to stand out in a tasting of 10 Saisons. But even with that caveat it is definitely worth picking up a bottle or two. Plus hey you are supporting a small Mom & Pop brewery which is awesome in itself.

Keep ‘em ‘tippin!!

Lake Placid Pub & Brewery

This weekend L Bird, Dinker, Cheesepaws Mom, and I went to Lake Placid for Oktoberfest, you can see the whole deal here. But one of the awesome things we got to do was have dinner at the Lake Placid Pub & Brewery.

We got there just in time for the dinner rush, so we had a fifteen minute wait for a table. Perfect, we had time to go to the bar and order a drink. The bar was packed, but lucky for us LPP&B has two bars, one upstairs and one downstairs. LPP&B is built in an old church so we walk out the entryway past some beautiful stained glass and downstairs to the second bar. Unfortunately for us, this bar was packed as well. We eventually made our way to the bar and got our beers.

I forgot what everyone else had, but I started with the Moose Island Ale. This is definitely a session beer. It was only 4.4% alc/vol and it was very light. It was crisp and clean, it didn’t have much aroma, but the taste was very refreshing. I could easily have drank a lot of this beer.

They called us to our table pretty quickly which was cool. We finished our beers and ordered another round while we waited for our food. This time I got the Barkeater Amber. This beer was fantastic, it was nicely balanced with good malty flavors and a slight amount of hops.

Our dinners came and they were also very delicious. I had “Josh’s Fire Fish”, which was basically a fish fry that was dipped in hot wing sauce. It was very good, I would highly recommend it.

Overall, it was a very good dinner and some very good beers with good friends. If you are ever in the Lake Placid area, The Lake Placid Pub & Brewery should definitely be on itinerary. So stop by, have a few cold ones, enjoy and as always keep ‘em tippin’!!

A Winter Warmer, well sort of….

It’s turning colder and has been chilly and raining all week, so that got me thinking about winter and brewing up some winter warmer beers. I was thinking of something nice, dark, malty and plenty of kick, but then I decided to take a different approach. Some of you may remember the infamous Hot Chili Pepper beer. Well what better way to keep warm in the winter than sweating to every wonderful sip of Hot Chili Pepper Ale and munching cheese with the Bears game on TV.

So I’m going to start brewing up a 6 gallon batch of fiery goodness,  but this time I think I am going to experiment a little and split the batch up into three 2 gallon fermenters. Then I can experiment with levels of heat. I’ll ferment one with mild jalapenos, a medium heat fermenter with mostly jalapenos and one or two habaneros, and the last fermenter will be an inferno with generous habaneros and a few jalapenos to round out the flavor.
I’ll try to post some good pictures or videos of the brewing process and hopefully some video of people trying them. Until then keep ‘em tippin’ !!!

Auction Beer Swag

So occasionally my buddy Capt. Insano and I hit the local auction. Now the whole auction is the greatest show in itself. It is set in an old barn, they have old church pews and old rows of movie theater seats bolted to the floor, the whole place is a greasy looking yellow from all of the smoke and grease and they have one of the most miserable auctioneers I’ve seen. But the whole scene is hysterical. She sits up on the raised platform and yells at her workers to bring things faster, then she comes up with odd words for certain items, like a few weeks ago everything was either a “compote” or a “commode”, last night everything was either a “spittoon” or a “chamber pot”. She yells at people to “put their damn cards up” and then usually the evening ends when she has had enough and closes the night. So the whole thing is always very entertaining.

We have gone a few times and normally come away with some useless junk, but it was fun. Well last night  was a great night for beer memorabilia. So I scored a pretty sweet find.

Yep, a vintage Genesee Beer tray. They also had a Genesee pool table light and a Schaefers hanging bar clock/lighted sign that was definitely vintage. I gave both of those things a shot but they quickly flew out of my price range. But overall I think it was a successful night at the auction.

Keep ‘em tippin’ !

Brewery Ommegang: Hennepin

Well, the summer is starting to wind down and we are now in September. But my thoughts are still on the hot, hazy dog days of summer and the perfect refreshment for those days, a Saison Ale.

With that in mind I ran down to Wegmans and went straight to the Belgian section, because there are a ton of truly fantastic saisons from Belgium. Well, I couldn’t make a decision between some of them so I fell back to an old comfortable standby Hennepin. Now technically it's not Belgian but it is brewed true to Belgian style. It’s actually brewed by Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY and they have an affiliation with Duval, so technically it really is Belgian by like the “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” or something like that. But anyway, on with the review:

Appearance: It poured a very light straw color and was quite hazy. It poured a rocky white head, I mean just look at it. It’s glorious. It was also very effervescent with millions of tiny bubbles streaming up the glass as it sat there.

Aroma: I got some very slight hoppy notes, that were balanced with some spicy notes. The spicy notes were peppery almost like black pepper, and then I also smelled a very slight hint of pine.

Taste: The first sip there was a slightly sweet but not overly sweet and cloying. It was light and refreshing. It was very crisp and clean across the palate. It was perfectly balanced so that there were really no stand out flavors that overpowered the beer.

Overall: This is a great beer. It is my old standby for hot summer days. Its always cold and refreshing and quenches your thirst perfectly. If you have it in your area it is definitely worth buying a bottle or two. Enjoy!

Keep ‘em tippin’!!