The Beer Nerd - what are you drinking / brewing thread

Yesterday was a beer trek from Houston to Lafayette LA. South of Lafayette is Parish brewing in Broussard. They make a great pale ale, Envie, and an outstanding I2PA Ghost in the Machine. They don't distribute out of state. So a road trip is in order to get product.

They also had a quad dry hopped Envie (mosaic) and double dry hopped Envie (El Dorado)

 

My go-to for camping is its Detour IPA. Goes down like water but is no joke. I've had a lot of Uinta's brews and I am impressed. I mean, it's almost ironical that quite a few micro/macro breweries coming from Utah are so fantastic.

 

10 gallons of Gose, racked a bit late (1008). Left to right: straight, coconut pineapple, sour cherry, mango. Those were juices.


I pulled the Rauchbier primary out for a 2 day diacetyl rest, SG 1010. OG was 1065

 

Another eclectic afternoon at my favorite taphouse. Damn, I love how the select and source beers.

 

Buying Ballast Point is only helping an investment company that thought BP was a solid investment at $1 Billion. Doesn't matter how good they are anymore. We have so many other choices like you say.

 

First batch is finally pouring. Had some refrigeration drama but its holding temp after some tweeks. NE pale ale. Then enjoyed a nice west coast ipa from Moonraker

 

Was at Bottle Logic tonight for the release of Fundamental Observation, batch 3. Had only a taste of my friends as I wanted to try the two variants that had a significant quantity less made. Number Crunch and F.O.M.O.

Both are variants of FO, which is a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout with Madagascar vanilla beans. Just to give you all an idea of how popular this beer is, over 2,400 people at the EXACT same time tried adding tickets to their cart on Eventbrite for the online sale. You have literally millesconds to score bottles. I sat at my computer for 25 minutes hitting F5 to refresh only to score 2/3 bottles. (It's a 3 bottle per person limit, unless you're a level up member like myself and have early access to 1 bottle. So i scored 3 in total) anyways, Number Crunch is an FO variant finished with Mexican and Peruvian cacao nibs. This beer literally tasted like a Nestle Crunch bar. So good.

F.O.M.O. is the FO variant but finished with coffee from Mostra Coffee. Equally delicious.
The place was packed, as to be expected on FO release night - 20 mins waiting in line to order a beer. But I'll be damned if those couple brews weren't some of the best damn stouts I've had in a few months.

 

Were those kettle soured?

 

Not Your Mom's Strawberry Rhubarb is pretty good.

 

So damn good and to think it was created by accident. A very happy accident

 

Sparging 10G of Pils now.

16 lbs of Avengard Pils
7 oz Acidulated malt

Hops will be Magnum (60,10), and then a bunch of different Nobels at heat off.
This is the perfect opportunity to use up an assortment of fractional oz bag leftovers from previous brews (Kolsch, Gose, etc.)

5G will be White Labs South German (WLP838)
5G will be White Labs German (Wehenstephan)

 

Yes, kettle soured (acidulated) with help (Walgreens Priobiotic, 10B cells/capsule Lacto Acidolphus/Lacto Rhamnosus GG, 30 capsules).
So it was mash, sparge, boil for 10 minutes, chill to 95-100, add capsules. Leave outside in Houston summer heat. So I started at about 95-100 Saturday, it was 90 or so Sunday morning, reheated to 95, and finished in afternoon/evening.

Read this:
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3497-german-gose-style-profile

I added 1 lb Acidulated to that recipe. I couldn't find his probiotic (Lacto Plantarum), but I did order some from Amazon for next time.

 

Very nice, but I liked Fortem better.

 

Roasted malt coming thru clear with this one. Not bad but I've had better from this brewery.

 

Rogue Pendleton pale ale.

Pretty good though it kinda reminds me of New Belgium fat tire. Might be the yeast.

 

Dinner Friday night in Vermont. We picked up some other stuff, which I'll have to get a shot of later.

 

Victory at Sea is a great beer. But yeah, they can go drown themselves in their overpriced Sculpin that isn't half the beer it used to be before they started mass producing it.

Comparable Firestone Walker product slaps them silly.

 

And you have had a lot worse too.

 

What I brought home from Vermont. I'm looking forward to trying the Strawberry Moon Sour. I only grabbed one can of that, but will go back for more if it's good.