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’!!

National IPA Day: Southern Tier Unearthly

Two days ago was National IPA day, so given the opportunity/excuse to drink a beer I’m going to. So while I was grocery shopping with A Bird which was it’s own form of treat slash torture I grabbed a bottle of IPA to celebrate National IPA Day.

***The picture is blurry just like I was after drinking this monster

The beer poured a dark amber and produced a generous “pillowy” head. It was very slightly cloudy. The aroma was not what I had expected. I was looking for an almost overpowering smell of hops, but  what I got was something more delicate. The hops were definitely there but nicely blended with flowery, herbal and almost “perfumey” (I’m not sure that’s a word but you get the point) notes. The whole aroma was very enticing.

Then I took my first sip and was pleasantly surprised again. I was expecting a heavy bitterness and bite up front that smacks you in the face practically yelling “I’M AN IPA, DAMN IT!”, but instead I got a really smooth almost creamy mouthfeel that let the ale notes come before the bite of hops and bitterness came in the finish. Then  like any good IPA, the more I drank of it the stronger the hops and bitterness became.

Overall this was a great IPA and I’m not an IPA guy. Plus it is an Imperial so it was 9.5% alcohol and it was very deceptive. When you were drinking it, the beer was so well balanced that you didn’t notice the alcohol  until it was too late. I would definitely recommend you pick up this beer and enjoy.

Keep ‘em tippin’!

Double Red Ale: Possible Giveaway??

I was looking around for something different to brew a few weeks ago and after looking through my beer magazines, an idea hit me. I decided I would brew a Double (Imperial) Red Ale. Well, there was one problem, I had a good Red Ale recipe, but nothing for a Double Red, so I improvised. I took my Red Ale recipe and doubled a few of the grains, but I probably should have not doubled the small amount of Simpson’s Dark Crystal Malt. Because of that little error my “RED” Ale is more of a nut brown than red. We’ll see what it looks like at bottling. (I've been sitting on this post, the beer definitely has red highlights.)

That brings me to my next point, I am going to be putting it in the bottles sometime this week. I bottle into 22 oz brown bottles, because if you are going to drink one homebrew, you probably are going to drink another so why not just cut to the chase and drink one 22 oz’er, right? So my 5 1/2 gallons will typically give me 27-29 bottles depending on how much beer I actually get after transferring it to the bottling vessel.

Now I know right now you are probably wondering what the title of this post is all about. It says “giveaway” and he is yammering on and on about his brewing goof ups. Well, lets get to it. I started a new workout program and it has taken a drastic cut to my drinking. Now I’m am going to keep a 6 pack of them for myself to be drank on special occasions, and I have obligations to some of my cohorts to give them a test bottle, but the rest I am going to give away. Now due to international alcohol shipping laws, I will not be able to give away any bottles to anyone outside the US. Sorry to all my international readers, don’t be mad at me, be mad at the various government bodies that enforce these rules.

So here is what I am thinking, I will have 5 bottles to give away. So the first 5 people to leave a comment will receive 1 – 22 oz bottles of Ol’ Naps Used to be Red Ale. The only thing I ask is that after you taste it, you come back to this post and leave me honest feedback. If you hate and fed it to the dog, great! Tell me that. If you loved it or have suggestions, tell me those too.

Now I’m hoping that most of these go locally because of shipping issues, but if you do live out of state, I’ll try to get crafty to get it to you. Just drop me your email and we can work out the details.

Good luck and happy tasting! Keep ‘em tippin’ !

Cool Local Beer Article...

So I was reading the news the other day and I came across a really cool article. It is all about the craft beer movement in the Finger Lakes area. The article covers a lot of different aspects from growing hops to the new breweries that are popping up. I figured I would share the link. Just click here for the craft beer article.


Also, I am trying to figure out a way to do a homebrew giveaway. I have a few bottles that I would like to give away, I just have to work out the kinks, so stay posted.

Keep ‘em tippin’ !

Middle Ages Brewing Co.

So I have had this post in my back pocket for a couple of weeks, but things didn’t work out the way I planned. Big surprise, right? But anyway, two weekends ago we went up to Syracuse to visit L Bird’s sister and her family. It’s always a good time to catch up and hang out while the kids play, plus I get to hang out with my brother in-law Chuck. So there is always a lot of good conversation about beer and plenty of good beer being drank as well. The past few times we have been up to visit, Chuck and I have talked about going to Middle Ages Brewing Co., but it has never worked out, normally because we go up to visit on Sundays and Middle Ages is closed on Sunday. But I got lucky this past visit, we ended up going on a Saturday. Awesome!

After some lunch and hanging out, Chuck and I ditched the wives and kids for an hour to head over to the brewery. I’ve had Middle Ages beer before, but any chance I can get to go to the tasting room, I am jumping on. Chuck winds his way through the city and we pull up in front of this old brick, industrial looking building with a small sign on the garage doors that said Middle Ages Brewing Co. Now I have been to plenty of breweries where the initial looks of the building were completely different from the quality of the beer. I have been to places where I drove by them a hundred times saying “There is no way that is a brewery it’s too small and looks like an old garage!” (Ithaca Beer) and had fantastic beer. Then I have been to places where the tasting room is as swanky as could be and the beer was definitely subpar (I’ll leave them nameless, as no one should drink “their” beer). So walking up to Middle Ages I was still completely unbiased.

We walked in and the tasting room was packed. I had a camera in my pocket to take a few pictures, but I completely forgot about it once the beer started pouring. Sorry! We made our way to the bar and found that they had 7 beers on tap for tasting and 3 other beers in the back that were for growler pours only. So 10 beers is a pretty healthy stable of beers, and Chuck and I made our way through 9 out of 10. We tasted the 7 they were pouring and a couple of them twice, then we each got a growler from out back. I liked one of their beers. They were all superb, but I especially liked the Old Marcus, it was slightly sweet with maybe some honey notes but it still had a nice maltiness to carry it through and make it a well rounded very easy drinking beer.

Middle Ages bar staff is also very good. They were very knowledgeable of the beers and very helpful, but also laid back. They were friendly and not pretentious beer snobs. They had a good time mixing with the crowd and still talking up good beer. I was very impressed with them to say the least.

I ended up getting a growler of the Black Heart Stout from their back room. I was going to do a beer review on it, but once I poured a pint I lost track of everything else and just enjoyed the simple pleasure of drinking and really enjoying a beer. I wasn’t worried about tasting notes or pictures; I just let myself be wrapped in the sensations of drinking it just for that enjoyment. I will say that it is an excellent stout and you should buy it if you ever happen upon it.

All in all it was a great trip to a great brewery and the beers are all fantastic. If you are in Syracuse, please find time to stop into Middle Ages and try their selections. You will not be disappointed. Until then, keep em’ tippin’!

Random Beer Things…

I can’t remember if I mentioned it or not but I recently ordered ingredients to make an Irish Red Ale plus a little. I basically ordered everything I needed to make a nice Irish Red, but I up’d my grain bill trying to make it just a little bit bigger. Not an Imperial Red but maybe just a double red or a Irish Red 2.0. We’ll see how it turns out, I am hoping to be brewing it by tomorrow night as long as fedex shows up on time tomorrow.

But while I sit here and salivate over my next brew I wanted to just share a few thoughts about craft beer. The first thing I realized is, it’s everywhere man. A few years back it was hard to find any beer that wasn’t a budweiser or miller-coors  product. Now as I walk down the grocery store, the beer isn’t only contained to the cooler any more. There are actually aisles,  yep that’s right aisles as in plural, as in more than one. So now you have choices galore. It’s an awesome time in craft beer. Even main stream grocery stores such as Wegmans or Tops are catching onto to the movement. I mean Wegmans has a “Craft Your Own Pack” section where you can mix and match a six pack of beer and the last time I was at Tops they had a little pamphlet on craft beer that gave definition of styles and the appropriate glassware to drink it out of. A really big and really cool step for grocery stores.

The second thing I noticed is that everyone I know is talking about craft beer. At work when I talk to my colleagues it seems like one of the first questions I hear is “Have you been to that new brewery to try their beer?”. Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a fellow winemaker about beer judging. He has been judging wine competitions for years and was asked to sit in for a beer judge cancellation. He is certainly no stranger to beer but he was shocked and amazed at the grading criteria in a beer competition. We were discussing how strict the style guidelines were and how many brewers are stretching the guidelines almost into new styles. I was explaining to him how there is a whole Beer Judging Certification Program that you have to complete to correctly judge beer.

So as I sit here drinking a frosty cold beer in the shade, I am just amazed at how far beer has come and I am very interested in where it is going. Who knows? Maybe in a few years I’ll know first hand. Here’s to wishful thinking!

Keep ‘em tippin’!!!

Dreaming again...

Image from: http://www.holderbros.com/blog/tagged-with/timber-framed-barn

So lately I have been really daydreaming about a lot of different things, but the two biggest of them being opening up a small “boutique” nanobrewery. (sorry, I work in the wine industry and around me, all of the tiny wineries/farm wineries are called boutique wineries) and secondly becoming less dependent on the world and becoming more self sufficient. If I had the money to go “off the grid” I SO would, but that is not an option at this point. However, as my daydreams continue to meander through my head I thought that this would be a really cool idea and possibly feasible on the nanobrewery level.


I think that it would be awesome to start up a small brewery that is almost entirely self sufficient. I think that if I had five to ten acres of land I could do it. I would plop down a rustic timber framed barn with the tasting room up front and the brewery operations in the back. Then there would be an acre or two dedicated to growing a couple different varieties of hops, and the rest of the acres would be for barley and some wheat for the malt bill for the brewery. Then I would contract with the local farmers to harvest and possibly process the barley for me. Then I could control the growing conditions for everything that enters my beer. I would be able to control my process from raw materials to finished beer. I’m not sure if the beer laws are the same as the wine laws, but if they are then I would be able to call my beer an “Estate” beer, meaning that all of the ingredients that go into the beer came from my property. Plus on a personal note, how satisfying would it be to know that your beers were all produced using materials that you had grown? That would be awesome.

But anyway, that’s what I have been thinking about lately in the world of beer. I’m also out trying to find a real good Double Red Ale recipe. My fermenters have been dry for too long and I’m itching to get something going.



Keep ‘em tippin’!!!