homebrew

April 21, 2019April 21, 2019

1st Inaugural Homebrew Palooza

Circle City Zymurgy, in partnership with Indiana On Tap, is excited to announce the date of the inaugural Indiana Homebrew Palooza–Indiana’s LARGEST exclusive homebrew festival and celebration for craft beer fans.

The 2019 event will feature UNLIMTED SAMPLES from over 12 different Indiana homebrew clubs (and an estimated 50+ homebrewers) spanning all the way from Evansville, to Fort Wayne, and everywhere in between. The event will also showcase great live music, local food trucks (Rusted Silo BBQ & Las Tortugas Mexican Cuisine), games and more.

The event offers a unique opportunity for Indiana’s biggest craft beer fans and supporters to come sample one-of-a-kind homebrewed beer that you’ve never tried before and may never get to enjoy again. While attendees will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite beer, this event is truly more of a celebration and appreciation of the Indiana homebrewing community, their craft, and their unique beers.

The event will take place in the massive and ideal outdoor lot next to Grand Junction Brewing Co.’s Tap Room in Westfield. Attendees are encouraged to visit the tap room before, during and after the event.

There is also an option for online ticket buyers to purchase a new (first year) Indiana On Tap Tasting Society Marketplace membership for only $5 more when purchasing a VIP or GA ticket. Normally $59.95/year by itself, this annual craft beer membership & rewards program is the largest and most unique of its kind in the state and good for over $1,200 toward the purchase of craft beer and more at 145+ Indiana breweries and locations. Offers are redeemed via an easy-to-use mobile app. Ticket buyers who choose this option will receive a separate email within 24 hours AFTER they receive their ticket order with their promo code to purchase/redeem their new membership for just $1. (The add-on price to the ticket is $4, plus the $1 at time of redemption = $5). To learn more about this amazing and unique membership program and the substantial savings, please visit www.TastingSocietyMarketplace.com.

Tickets are now on sale with an opportunity to save big by buying online, in advance.

Early Bird Tickets (Available until May 1st): GA – $25 | DD – $10

Advance Sale Tickets (Available from May 1st – June 22nd): GA – $30 | DD – $10

Gate Sales (Available Day of Event if Tickets Are Still Available): GA – $40 | DD – $10

Proceeds from this event will be donated to the Boone County Habitat for Humanity and their “House That Beer Built” initiative!

This is a 21+ event. All attendees must show a valid photo I.D. at the gate. You must be 21 years or older to attend—this includes designated drivers. ALL TICKET SALES ARE FINAL. The event will be held rain or shine.

Participating Homebrew Clubs (with more to be announced soon):

Circle City Zymurgy – Indianapolis | Bloomington Hop Jockeys – Bloomington | Sunblest Brewers Association – Fishers | Ohio Valley Homebrewers Association – Evansville | Foam Blowers of Indiana – Indianapolis | Midwestern Order of Nin-Kasi (M.O.N.K.) – Beech Grove | Illiana Beer Rackers Union (IBRU) – Highland | Lilly Homebrew Club – Indianapolis | Marshall County Brew Club – Plymouth | Dubois County Suds Club – Jasper | Tippecanoe Homebrewers Circle – Lafayette | Indiana Brewers Union (IBU) – Indianapolis

March 15, 2018March 15, 2018

Kettle Sour: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sour Beer

This blog was written by our member and frequent sour brewer, Ben Martin. Enjoy!

Are you a fan of sours, but don’t have the time and space to commit to 3 years? Afraid of infecting your clean brew house? Want to get out of the pale lager rut? Are you looking for a way to appease the hipster cult that lives next door? Well then this guide is for you! If not, keep reading you might learn something, maybe.

Disclaimer

This guide is simply a breakdown of the process I use to brew kettle sours on my system. I am by no means an expert. Your experiences may vary from mine. Words of warning, if you plan on attempting this, then you are making sour beer. This process limits your risk of infecting your brew house, but only if you practice good sanitation. Second, sour beer is more of an art than a science. Don’t be afraid to dump bad batches.

The Process

Kettle souring is much like performing a normal brew day with a few added steps in the process. Equipment-wise, if you can brew a clean beer, you most likely have everything you need to brew a kettle sour. The one piece of equipment that is required/highly recommended is a pH meter. You will want to measure the drops in pH during the kettlesouring process.

Kettle souring begins like a normal brew day. Perform your mash as you normally would. Personally I brew BIAB (Brew In A Bag). I perform a 70 minute mash on an induction burner keeping my mash around 150°F. After the mash I squeeze my grain bag to free up as much wort as possible.

The next step is the kettle souring step. During this step is the only chance to contaminate your brew house. Bring your wort to a brief boil to sanitize the wort and kill off any unwanted yeast or bacteria naturally present in the wort. After a brief boil chill the wort down to 100°F. Pre-acidify the wort to a pH between 4.2 -4.5. This will help prevent unwanted bacteria from growing in your wort and creating off-flavors. Pitch a pure lactobacillus culture and seal the kettle. Wait for the terminal or desired pH to be reached.

Anvil Brew Kettle with Ferment in a kettle gasket.

My kettle souring step looks like this; after the mash I bring my wort to a boil for 15 minutes. I then chill the wort to 110°F. I measure the pH and pre-acidify the wort to pH 4.2. During this step my temperature naturally falls to my target pitch temp of 100°F. Then I spray StarSan around the inside of the kettle and on the lid. I pitch a Goodbelly Probiotic Shot.

This contains a pure culture of lactobacillus planetarum. Then I seal up my Anvil kettle using the fermenter conversion kit. I let my kettle temperature free fall to room temperature over 3 days. By then my terminal pH, normally 3.6, has been reached.

After you reach your terminal pH, it is time to resume your normal brew day. Bring the soured wort up to a boil, add hops according to your recipe, chill and pitch your yeast. This boil sterilizes the batch and kills the lactobacillus. This allows you to use your clean cold side equipment for the batch. Due to the low pH of the wort, yeast will experience acid shock. It is important to note that you need a large and healthy yeast starter to pitch.

The rest of my process works as such; I bring my soured wort to a boil for 15 minutes. Add a small dose of hops to reach around 8 IBUs. Chill the wort to 72°F and pitch yeast. I normally chose Imperial A20 Citrus for all my kettle sours. I then let the fermentation ride. I do not have temperature controlled fermentation. If I plan to add fruits, I will typically add them towards the end of active formation on the 5th day from pitching yeast. The fruit will sit for a week before kegging. I normally target 1-2lb of fruit per gallon.

Dry hopped kettle sour with hop garnish.

As I stated, I am not an expert. There are plenty of people who know more about this than I do. Here are a few of the best sources for more information on kettle sours and sour beer in general.
Milk the Funk Wiki (This group also has a Facebook group, but if you ask a question the first thing they are going to say is read the wiki.)
The Sour Hour Podcast
The Mad Fermentationist Blog
Dr. Lambic Blog

October 2, 2017

Circle City Zymurgy at Union Jack’s 5th Annual Pumpkin, Cider, and Fall Beer Festival

Man, what a day! Circle City Zymurgy had a great time at Union Jack’s Pumpkin, Cider, and Fall Beer Festival. The event was completely sold out and had about 650 attendees. There were around 40 different vendors pouring delicious beverages with a total of 76 different, unique beers being poured.

CCZ had a great presence at the festival. Along with myself, other attending members were Steve Kent, Wes Martin, Jeremiah Tyson, and Allen Brown. We brought 5 kegs of homebrew. Wes brought his “Great Horse Pumpkin Ale”, Jeremiah his “Jack ‘O’ Porter (served on nitro), Steve brought his PSL – also on nitro, Allen had his near 15% mead, and we had Jonathan Marting’s Pumpkin Roll Ale.

In the end, we poured a total of 25 gallons of homebrew. Everyone that came up for a taste wanted to try something different and I believe we had a great variety for everyone to have something to enjoy (I’m pretty confident in saying that based on the constant line we had!)

There were a total of 9 homebrewers that attended and we were all right next to each other. As you could imagine, we had great conversations discussing the hobby we love. This year, Union Jack also held a homebrew competition with the winner receiving a $100 gift card to Union Jack. A big congratulations is in order for our member Jeremiah for getting 2nd place for his Jack ‘O’ Porter!

The festival itself was a great time. We really could not have asked for a better day. The weather was perfect and really gave an exact feeling of what Fall is all about. As soon as you walked in you were given a choice of two neat glasses that you get your beer poured into. The festival had plenty of great food to keep you going during your beer trek. A few vendors such as Indiana on Tap were there as well supporting the hobby and offering free or discounted offers.

Elysian Brewing, based out of Seattle, Washington, had a great presence as well. They had their own little area where 6+ of their beers were served. Each of theirs had its own unique style and taste as well. With a big name like Elysian, I definitely had to try them all.

In conclusion, this was a very prosperous event for Circle City Zymurgy. I heard multiple attendees surprised that our beer was homebrewed, expecting it to be made at a professional brewery. I also had a few people walk up to me after seeing my shirt and asking where our beer could be purchased. You can’t get a much better compliment than that. This will definitely have to be an annual event for CCZ!

July 24, 2017November 16, 2017

Indiana On Tap Tasting Society Recap – An Outpouring of Love

On Friday July 21, Circle City Zymurgy participated in the July gathering of the Indiana On Tap Tasting Society. The goal of these events is to showcase our state’s fine breweries and/or the beers available throughout the state by bringing something special and different to each event. In fact, no two monthly events are the same. The events are intimate–think more of a swanky party instead of a beer festival. What’s cool about this is attendees had plenty of opportunities to talk to the brewery staff and the brewers themselves. As a bonus, these tasting society events are also Indiana’s premier venue for trading rare and hard-to-find beers from all over the state and the nation.

CCZ members including myself, Nick Boling, Jonathan Marting, and Matt and Lauren Wolford had a great time pouring our beer and representing the club. Joining us were Rhinegeist Brewery from Cincinnati and Creatures of Habit from Anderson, IN. For this event, Indiana on Tap partnered with Bottom’s Up, which meant we got to serve our beer on their awesome draft system. Thank you to Bottom’s Up for providing pouring enjoyment for our crew! As the indoor temperature rose to meet that of the outside, the event space filled with throngs of thirsty beer geeks. Having the premier pouring space, most guests queued up in front of the Circle City Zymurgy booth. We started the night with a broad spectrum of brewing styles for the tasters; Russ Der Cogburn Lemon Shandy, A Southerner in London (A hazelnut praline English mild), Meeb’s Milk Stout and Grapefruit Baby Doll (An American pale ale enhanced with Amoretti Ruby Red Grapefruit artisanal flavoring). The CCZ line quickly became THE place to be with lines surpassing all other pouring stations for a majority of the night. As the night progressed so did our lineup of tasty malt beverages, such as Mr. Mild Mannered (English Mild), Juicy Lucy New England IPA, 124 Conch Street (Pineapple Wheat) and Tears of a Wookiee American pale ale). All told, the CCZ crew floated 8 kegs in less than 3 hours, while Rhinegeist and Creatures of Habit had a sufficient supply of brews on tap. The ambiance was a hip and cool with party tunes provided by DJ 3pm, beer flavored cupcakes by Tipsy Turvey of Anderson, handcrafted pirogi from The Pirogi Truck and craft hard sodas from Garden Party Botanicals.

Overall this was a very successful night of pouring for CCZ and the club members who participated. With this being a monthly event, there will be plenty of opportunities for other members of the club to participate, however, be prepared to meet the high expectations set by the inaugural crew and remember to bring PLENTY of beer!

[slideshow_deploy id=’1130′]

Thank you to CCZ member Rob Ecker for this recap. This blog post has been edited and condensed for clarity.

March 2, 2017

Cincy Beerfest Review

Cincy Winter BeerFest: On February 17th and 18th , Cincinnati held its 10th annual Winter Beerfest. This beerfest is unlike any that I have ever been to. There were over 500 beers from over 150 breweries, there was live music for entertainment, food trucks with anything from mac and cheese to barbeque to Asian small plates to a donut burger. If you could imagine it in either beer or food it was more than likely in the Duke Energy Center, including a silent disco. Unlike the Indy Winterfest, it was not nearly as cold nor did people have to stand out in freezing temperatures to get in and enjoy the fruits of so many brewers labor. The convention center was set up so that pre-banding occurred within the same building as the event, literally just upstairs from the main entrance. There was a plethora of security guards to check your ID’s and once you were proven to be worth (21+ yrs. of age), there were around 15 or so lines to let you through to the beer if you hadn’t been pre-banded. Overall the layout of the event and flow of people was astronomically better than Indy Winterfest and there was no need for discounted tickets to another event.

With this being my first beerfest outside of the state of Indiana I was shocked to learn that other states have odd and sometimes confusing alcohol laws and that we aren’t the only crazy state in the Union with some random blue laws. In Ohio, there has to be an exchange occur for alcohol to be served. For this event, everyone was given 25 little blue tickets to exchange for their beer. Interestingly enough, I still had a majority of my 25 tickets left at the end of the night and I didn’t skimp on drinking. If the pourers were from the brewery they really didn’t care about the tickets, they just wanted you to try their beer. The volunteers who were pouring for breweries on the other hand were more in tune with the law and kept asking for the tickets. But enough about how it was different from Winterfest and random state’s blue laws and on to the important stuff, specifically the people, the beer, and the event.

The people, what can I say, the people were awesome. First, Lauren, Vicki, Mickey and myself were in attendance from CCZ (sorry if we missed anyone), and we had a great time hanging out and drinking beer. For a majority of the event it was a free-for-all and we dispersed like a rabid pack of dogs on the event. I went one direction, Lauren followed but headed to a separate table and Mickey and Vicki were off on their own escapades. As all of us had purchased VIP entrance tickets, we were given the 25 tickets and an 8oz glass. Needless to say, I do not need 200oz of beer let alone in a 5-hour period, so Lauren and I were able to split drinks and enjoy more samples without becoming so intoxicated that a small spark would have ignited us. We took the more casual approach to maneuvering the 500 beers and 150 breweries and set out to try beers we hadn’t ever had or breweries we hadn’t heard of. This allowed us to pick and choose the lines we wanted to wait in (not too many) and also spend time talking to the brewers who were more than gracious to talk to a couple of homebrewers who enjoyed their beer (thanks Wooden Cask). Vicki on the other hand had her lineup set with the have to have 30+ beers, the want to haves (another 20+) and then the ‘if I am still standing and want more’ beer list. This plan worked out quite well for Vicki as she was able to check off her entire must have list.

The Beer. Where do I even begin with the beer. Let’s start with the Beer List. There were breweries that were local to Cincinnati, there were regionally located breweries and then you had the giants of the craft beer industry. All of them were more than happy to provide a tasty beverage and some even produced some out of this world samples. My favorite sample was from the already mentioned Wooden Cask who is a recently opened brewery from nearby Newport. They had some spot on British beers with an English Brown Ale that was the perfect balance of malt and hops and an English Porter. I also found that Figleaf, a brewery out of Middleton, OH also produces a great English Special Bitter (ESB). I went into this event really excited to see that a lot of breweries were bringing their Kolsch’s to the event. However, in the end I only got to sample one as the rest of the breweries did not have it. The one I had was just OK, there were some off flavors not normally present in a kolsch. Overall, the beer provided was overall on the up and up and whatever type of beer suits your fancy, you could find it and then some.

The Event. This is an event that I will definitely go back and we are already making plans and trying to get a bigger group to go down and enjoy with us. The people who are volunteering are wonderful, the breweries provided great beer, the venue is set up great for an event and the people of Cincinnati are wonderful and were great hosts. At any point, you were likely to bump into someone, but everyone continuously was saying excuse me and apologizing for bumping into each other. This was a refreshing atmosphere when compared to many events where people get to intoxicated and manners go out the window. Overall this event is one that is a top recommendation for anyone wanting to go to a beerfest outside of Indiana and provides for a nice easy drive and weekend away. Also, see Jungle Jim’s, Ikea, and Bass Pro Shops but that is not beer related, except Jungle Jim’s. While there weren’t any homebrewers and homebrew clubs pouring at this event, we all enjoyed the fruits of many brew master’s labor and will likely be attending the 11th annual Cincy Beerfest.

Matt Wolford – Cincy Beerfest Review

August 14, 2016March 5, 2019

Anatomy of a Recipe – Classic Rauchbier

Anatomy of a recipe is a new feature where Circle City Zymurgy members walk you through the process of developing and perfecting either an award-winning recipe, or a recipe they are just very proud of. Our first entry is by me, Steve Kent. My classic Rauchbier, Bamberger Helper, won silver at the Hammerdown Brewcup in April, made it to mini-best of show at the UpCup, and just last month finished third in the smoke and wood-aged category at the Indiana Brewers Cup. It is a very good beer.

Centuries ago all malts were kilned on wood fires, lending them a smoky-sweet flavor. But with the onset of the industrial revolution, these beers quickly fell out of favor and were replaced with beers brewed with the clean, neutral malt produced using steam power. But the small town of Bamberg in Northern

Bavaria made sure that smoked beers wouldn’t go extinct. Their rauchbier (literally “smoke beer” in German) is brewed like a maltier, higher-alcohol Marzen with an unmistakable smokey flavor and aroma. Far and away the most popular exemplar of the style is Aecht Schlenkerla; and for good reason. It is an excellent beer, and if you can find it fresh (not always an easy task) it is delightful. Rauchbier was one of those styles that I knew I would love, even before I ever tried one. And when I had my first Aecht Schlenkerla at the Rathskeller, my hunch was confirmed. If you’re still on the fence, you just have to trust me. A good rauchbier is not like drinking a fire pit. When done right the smokiness is mild and serves to heighten and accentuate the clean, rich, malty flavor of the base beer. For me, rauchbier is the perfect beer for when you’re sitting in front of a fire on a March or April night; when it’s probably too cold to have a fire, but you’re too sick of winter to care. It is no coincidence that Bamberg is also the home of the Weyermann Malting Company. Their Rauchmalt, which is smoked over beechwood and is my preferred base malt for rauchbier. It clocks in at about 2.1-3.6 Lovibond and has enough diastatic power to self convert.

Attempting to brew a clone of Aecht Schlenkerla is a quixotic endeavor because, depending on who you believe, they either smoke their own malt or get their smoked malt specialty made by Weyermann. So the best I could do was make the best version of a rauchbier using the ingredients available to me. Based on everything I read, a beer brewed with 100% rauchmalt has too overpowering a smoke flavor. I wanted an assertive but not overpowering smoke flavor in my rauchbier, so I settled on 65% rauchmalt. Luckily that ended up providing just the right level of smoke. This style should be light amber to dark copper in color, moderately strong, and have a rich, sweet and toasty malt character. Given this information, the instinct is to incorporate crystal malt in the recipe, but I prefer not to use crystal malts in my continental lagers; instead I prefer to achieve a malty beer using richer base malts and multi-step mash schedule. I rounded out the grain bill with 30% dark Munich malt which provides an orange color, a pleasant breadiness, and a rich, malty sweetness, 3% melanoidin for even more maltiness, and 2% Carafa III to give it that deep copper color I wanted.

Even though this is a malt-forward style, I knew I was dealing with a very malty grain bill, so I couldn’t be shy with the hops. I went with about 23 IBU of Magnum for bittering. Usually a single bittering addition is enough, but I opted to add ½ oz of Tettnang hops with 15 minutes left in the boil. My reasoning was that the subtle hop flavor would help balance the maltiness better and it would allow the beer to be drinkable for a longer time. This particular beer won its two awards nearly three months apart, so I feel like that strategy worked perfectly.

I perform a Hochkurz mash on all my continental lagers. This involves a beta rest at 145 degrees F and an alpha rest at 158 degrees F. Doughing in at a lower temperature allows me to better control the fermentability of their wort, and the higher alpha rest helps improve maltiness and head retention. Beers brewed with a Hochkurz mash will be well attenuated and still have a nice, malty finish, characteristic of the best German lagers. A 30 minute rest at each step followed by a mashout was sufficient. If I am not feeling lazy, I will perform a double decoction with this mash. The small differences between rest temperatures makes decocting easy. If you plan on performing a decoction, feel free to omit the melanoidin.

Water is very important when making rauchbier. You 100% can not use spring water or tap water. Chlorine and smoke don’t mix. Since I didn’t want my rauchbier to taste like rubber bands, I started with a base of 100% distilled water. Beyond that, I just kept my minerals low. I used a small amount of gypsum and a moderate amount of calcium chloride; enough to get my calcium levels close to 50 ppm.

Saflager 34/70 (the Weihenstephaner strain) has been my go-to yeast for most lagers. It has never done me wrong, so I figured why switch things up. I always pitch an insane amount of yeast and keep it as cold as it can possibly handle–46-48 degrees with a diacetyl rest after seven days. I wanted this beer to be clean, clean, clean.

The power of the homebrewer is being able to take a beer brewed solely in a German city of 70,000 people and say, “I can do that”. There is nothing quite like a fresh homebrewed rauchbier done right. And now that you know how to do it, go out and brew it. Prost!

February 25, 2016March 4, 2019

All American Homebrew Competition Results

The All American Homebrew Competition was held last Saturday in Cincinnati, and we are happy to report that three CCZ members came away with medals.

Brandon Meyer won a gold medal for his “Kentucky Breakfast Quad”.

Brady Smith won a bronze medal for his California Common, “Carrollton Common”.

And I won a bronze medal for my Schwarzbier, “Black is Beautiful”.

As our club grows and matures, I hope that we enter more and more competitions and earn more and more medals. I believe the sign of a great homebrew club is the willingness to participate and succeed in competitions. Check back periodically with the “Upcoming Competitions” portion of our site for more local and regional competitions,

Full results for the All American Homebrew Competition can be found here.

Cheers,

Steve Kent-Goldings