Infinium by Samuel Adams and Weihenstephan

January 5, 2011 ~ Ken Valley ~ 2 Comments

On New Year’s, I had the chance to try Infinium, the collaboration between Samuel Adams and the Weihenstephan Brewery, the oldest known brewery in the world. These two breweries worked for over several years to create a new type of beer, adhering to the Reinheitsgebot, or German purity law that states beer can be made of only four ingredients: malt, hops, water, and yeast. They claimed it to be like a champagne, but it’s not at all like the champagne of beers…

To sum up this beer, it closely resembled a highly carbonated Belgian trippel . What makes it more fascinating though is most trippels tend to use candi sugars in the beer to increase the strength of the beer while reducing the body. Infinium uses only malt to push this to a 10.3% beer.

This beer smells very fruity, like a trippel with more carbonation. It tastes like a mix of a Belgian trippel and a Belgian dubbel (because of the bigger malt flavor), and the extra carbonation leaves a big tingling sensation. It finishes slightly sweet with a dry finish. I thought it was a good beer that has its place in the beer world, but, in my opinion, at $18, there are more cost effective Belgian beers available.

Did you have some Infinium over New Year’s? What did you think?

Beer Brewing for Winter

November 16, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Ken Valley ~ 2 Comments

Granny Smith Apples in the Caramel Apple Tart

Over the past three weeks, every Sunday, I’ve been working tirelessly on increasing my winter beer reserves. With family coming to town for Thanksgiving, and an “Ugly Sweater Party” the beginning of December, I had a lot of beer to make.

Starting off, week one, I made a saison, and one of my specialties, caramel apple tart. The previous time I made the caramel apple tart, I used a sour mash, but decided to use a less time consuming method of adding acid malt the last ten minutes of the mash. Here’s the all-grain recipe (let me know if you want more details):

6 lbs 2-row malt

3 lbs Munich malt

0.5 lbs Crystal 40 malt

0.5 lbs Special B malt

1 lb Acid malt (10 minutes left in the mash)

1 oz Willamette hops (60 minutes, 3.5% AAU)

1 oz Willamette hops (10 minutes, 3.5% AAU)

2 Granny Smith Apples (Julienne’d in the secondary)

California Ale-type yeast (I used WLP001)

The last time I tried this beer, it was a hit at our engagement party, so much so that everyone kept asking when I would make it again. It’s a nice, slightly tart beer with an aroma of apples and a hint of caramel. It has a very refreshing finish, and leaves a bit of “tart apple” in your mouth.

Week two, I made a nice Belgian Wit and a Samuel Adams Boston Lager (as an ale) clone. These four beers, along with an Oktoberfest done a month ago, give us plenty of beer to have around the holidays.

However, not being satisfied with these for our holiday party, this past Sunday, I made an Oatmeal Cookie Ale (with vanilla and cinnamon), and a Gingerbread Cookie Ale (with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves). I know I’ve said how I dislike spiced winter beers, but I had to make an exception, especially when I keep the spices to a minimum.

Have you made or had any out-of-the-box beers lately? Let me know!

Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock

November 9, 2010 ~ Ken Valley ~ 5 Comments

In this year’s Samuel Adams Winter Classics 12-pack, Samuel Adams has expanded the scope of their Chocolate Bock. Previously, the Chocolate Bock could only be found in Limited Edition 25.9 ounce bottles.

The beer smelled sweet, with a scent of chocolate. With the taste, it was a smooth, malty bock that had a hint of chocolate flavor that comes from the Ecuador cocoa nibs that the beer is aged on. The chocolate was not too overpowering, and was subtle. It was just enough to let you know it was there.

I’m glad to see Samuel Adams added Chocolate Bock to the Winter Classics as a seasonal beer.

Have you tried the Chocolate Bock? What did you think?

Samuel Adams Winter Classics Variety Pack

November 2, 2010November 28, 2011 ~ Ken Valley ~ 18 Comments

Note: this info is for the 2010 version of the Winter Classics pack. The 2011 pack is located here.

Now that the calendar has turned to November, many breweries are starting to release winter beers. Maybe it’s just me, but letting go of the malty goodness of a fall beer and jumping into spicy winter beers makes me wish it was still fall. Spiced beers have never been a favorite of mine (I’m looking at you, pumpkin ale), but luckily Samuel Adams hasn’t gone overboard with the spices in this year’s Winter Classics Variety Pack.

In the pack, there are 2 bottles each of:

Boston Lager

Holiday Porter

White Ale

Chocolate Bock

Winter Lager

Old Fezziwig Ale

Looking through the pack, the only one I would consider unpleasantly spiced would be Old Fezziwig Ale, but luckily, Samuel Adams has learned to turn down the spices a bit to make all of them drinkable. I like the fact that the Chocolate Bock has been included, and the Cranberry Lambic has been removed. It’s also good to see an appearance from the White Ale, since it’s no longer the Samuel Adams spring seasonal beer.

Have you tried the Winter Classics Variety Pack? Which ones in the pack do you like? Which ones don’t you like?

What is Decoction?

October 25, 2010 ~ Ken Valley ~ Leave a comment

Toward the end of the fall beer season, I like to look back and reflect on how great Oktoberfest beers are. They have a great malty, almost burnt-caramel flavor to them. This is because many of these beers use a process called “decoction”. This is when about 0ne-third of the resting mash is scooped out, boiled, then returned to the original mash. This raises the temperature to a specific level, achieving a higher resting temperature to activate different enzymes.

Decoction mashing was widely used in Europe, specifically Germany, before the use of thermometers because taking out a portion of the mash and boiling it (a constant temperature) successfully allowed the specific temperature values to occur. In addition to this, boiling the grains also made extraction of the starch easier by breaking the cell walls of the grain. Today, this is not as necessary, because most brewing grains are well-modified, so the starches are easily available for starch to sugar conversion.

Kind of a “side-effect” of this style of mashing was the introduction of complex, strong caramel flavors from the boiling, called a maillard reaction, producing melanoidins.

These are some of the flavors found in several malt-forward beer styles, such as Oktoberfests, marzens, or bocks. Samuel Adams also uses this type of technique for the Boston Lager.

The decoction process is not used as much today because it is extremely time consuming (up to 3-4 times as long), and is logistically very difficult in large scale breweries. For the homebrewer, however, it may be a process worth exploring.

Have you heard of decoction mashing? What is your take on the process?