Beer and Brewing Journal

On my way back to the house Saturday, I had just time enough to swing by a Whole Foods to see what they had beer-wise. I assumed everything would be pretty costly there as the nickname of the store, Whole Markup or Whole Paycheck, goes. I have to say I was pretty impressed and saw some of the best prices I have seen in a bit. First of all, Boont Amber for 7.49…..same price as Trader Joes…and I never believed that Whole Foods would equal it. Couple other deals, as the receipt shows: Red Nectar Ale for 6.49 and Köstritzer for 2.29 (hopefully it is fresh).
I guess my opinion of Whole Food's prices (for beer) have changed for now.




…oh, and Sierra Nevada Bigfoot for 8.99 a six pack. Unheard of. Must be a mistake…but one you should take advantage of.

Upon popping the top off of a bottle of Anderson Valley’s Brother David Triple, I quickly realized that I didn’t cut off a wax seal first. Previously the Doubles and Triples came with a wax seal over the top. A very nice touch. I went and looked at a recent photo (below) and there you are, I guess they are done with the wax seal?
I haven’t found any info on the web about this but my assumption is that since the Brother David line isn’t the big bread winner like Boont Amber, combined with increases in barley prices, that they decided reduce cost? The counter to that would be that they did raise the price of Brother David by about a buck. So I have no answers on this one yet.

At some stores it doesn’t pay to buy in quantity…..
In one of my previous posts about deal shopping for beer, I mentioned to always be aware about pricing deals on quantity. In other words, the 12 pack may be cheaper than the six pack. So you might as well stock up.
Turns out it is equally important to watch this for the opposite reason as well. My local bevmo, which I have many complaints about, has made it a better deal to buy Gordon Biersch six packs over 12 packs. Note the two photos below. Six packs are $6.99 and twelve packs are $14.99. Holy crap, you get charged an extra buck for trying to buy in bulk! Watch those prices….

With the increase in beer prices this year, it's always good to keep in your head what beer prices are at Trader Joes as they probably will not be beat in pricing....I assume they negotiate good deals because they are buying large quatities for their stores.
They don't have a large selection but they do have some key companies. I didn't include the German beers (I need to do that) or Chimay, since I am not a big fan of Chimay....but I believe it was 7.99 for a 750ml of red label. The following are six pack prices:
Anderson Valley Brewing Co., Hop Ottin' IPA and Boont Amber: 7.49
Mendocino Brewing Co., Red Tail Ale and White Hawk IPA: 6.99
North Coast Brewing Co., Acme IPA and Pale 6.79
Full Sail Brewing Co., Pale Ale and Amber: 5.99

I have to thank my wife for this find! She kept telling me about it and I finally went for myself. It was tough to actually find the place, even though it is very local for me. The storefront is pretty non-descript and set near the back of the non-descript El Cerrito mall.
What’s great? They have a pretty decent beer fridge for a deli: Most German beer styles in 500ml bottles, some Fullers, and some American Craft. The wonderful thing is that the have Köstritzer on tap! Available in Schwarzbierbrauerei glassware in third, half, and full liter! Excitedly, I ordered a half liter with a corned beef sandwich. Since it was only 11:30am and I had my 18 month old daughter in tow, I of course worried that I would get a nasty look from any lurking neo-prohibitionists. No chance. I saw other customers happily taking their lunch to their tables with lager in tow. Wonderful. I ate my sandwich and drank my Schwartzbier and chased my escaping daughter around the deli.

Looks like spring is here. My basement can only keep my fermentations down to 68 degrees at this point. During the winter I had the luxury of being able to ferment down to the lowest Ale fermentation temp necessary. I do like 65 degrees as this keeps the fruit flavors more in check. Nothing wrong with 68 however and that’s what we’ll go with. I’ve adjusted my temp controller to 67 so that it will only cool to 66 before the heat kicks in, although I doubt it will get that low. In a couple days, I’ll start raising the temp control a degree every other day so that I’ll keep the yeast from going dormant too soon and hopefully get some good attenuation.



Here’s my daughter wondering why there are burps and bubbles coming out of that bucket.

Brew day went smooth thanks to having the entire day free (read: no stress or hurried process).Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and it definitely felt like spring. Total brew day was about five hours including cleanup.
I bought a new bucket for sanitizer when making starters. It fits in the kitchen sink and I can completely submerse my 2000ml Erlenmeyer flask in it. I felt like I needed to up the clean process a little for my starters and having this big bucket of sanitizer, instead of a salad bowl, helps.
Again, like last brew, I didn’t have enough water in the boil (gravity was too high). I need to remember not to get caught by this, especially since I didn’t measure gravity until I had 10 min left in the boil. I added about half gallon of water to get gravity to 1.056 but it took 5 minutes to get water back to boil and I had two hops additions left. So my 5 minute addition was more like a 9 minute addition….big deal. I just need to remember to check gravity with 15 plus minutes left. Good news is that I hit my numbers.
I used the WLP002 English Ale Yeast. The tube did seem like it had a lot of yeast in it. In fact it seemed to have more in it than when I first brought it home (hmmm). Tube was very thick as there wasn’t too much liquid left. The yeast itself seems thick in general. (note: after researching the yeast on the white labs website, it turns out this is very typical for this yeast strain. It is a highly flocculent yeast and coagulates in the shipping tube). When I stopped my stirplate in the morning the yeast settled out quickly and was almost a past at the bottom of the flask. When I started the plate again, the yeast starting kicking around in big chunks. The fermentation seems similar to the Irish Ale yeast. About four inches of kreusen in the morning…..no super kreusen coming out of the carboy, like the Edinburgh yeast.

Here is the craft beer selection at my local beer stop. Right around the corner from it is a smaller but just as well thought out selection of English, Belgian, and German imports. So overall, not too shabby for a small space.
One day they pulled what was mainly Moylan’s bombers out of the local craft brew section and replaced it with some imported German beer. Not only did they lose great beer from a local craft brewery but also they put in something that belongs in their import section around the corner. That beer hasn’t sold much from what I’ve seen (I haven't heard of Reutberger). I talked to the staff about this but no change yet.
Right to the left of this, I notice the bottles of Smirnoff ice….I guess the stocker figured that the bottle was roughly the same size as the others. Sad contrast to the wonderful Brother David’s next to it.What to do. I'll talk to them again and see if they need a volunteer to run the beer section....

I had some spare time so I stopped off at the Orinda Bevmo to look around. This is one of more favorite Bevmos since they seem to always have something new or unusual. They didn’t disappoint. Near the end of my browsing, I fortunately spotted the bombers of Anderson Valley 20th anniversary Double IPA! I bought two bombers but I ended up going back the next day and buying two more. On top of it, this Bevmo had a blowout on Three Stooges bottle openers….only 25 cents each! I bought five.The Anderson Valley 20th has a beautiful label that really stands out. I appreciate this because it really makes you look forward to the beer that is inside. As usual, I already had a couple beers prior to trying my first bottle, so I didn’t have the best sampling conditions. What I do remember was a wonderful aroma that was a good balance of hops and malt. The taste had lots of hop goodness with less malt taste than in the aroma. The finish was a swirl of hop flavors that were tastefully present (not too bitter) and pleasant linger. Looking forward to the next three bombers! If you can find this one, buy it!

As we all know, beer prices have gone up. I have seen retail prices on six packs higher than 10 dollars. The good news is with a little thought and research, you can actually save more money and avoid the end effect of hops and barley prices going up.
Here is a shot of Gordon Biersch six packs from Safeway. Retail price of $8.29. Kind of an “ouch” but not too bad relatively speaking.