So after the last beer trade I made on Beer Advocate, I was a little weary of the concept because with the shipping and everything out to California, it was tough to justify.  But I was still reading the forums on Beer Advocate, and I got sucked back in.  The first trade the caught my eye was when someone posted “ISO: Maine Beer Company Zoe FT: My gots”  Basically what this means in Beer Advocate language is the trader was in search of Maine Beer Company’s Zoe and he had for trade his gots list, which is a list you maintain on Beer Advocate of the beer you have available for trade.

Well, after talking with the gentleman, he was interested in Zoe because he had had two cats recently pass away from cancer, and one was named Zoe.   Therefore, he wanted two bottles of Zoe, one to try and one to hang onto in memorial.  The trader was in Chicago, so that saves on shipping, and we made it a smaller trade (or so I thought), which also saves on shipping.  So I ended up sending out the following to him:

Maine Beer Company Zoe  (x2)
Allagash Fluxus 2010
Rock Art Brewing Belvidere IPA
Shipyard XXXX IPA

He was sending back to me just a random assortment of Midwestern beer that was somewhere close to the same price amount.  Well, the man is very generous.   To put it in numbers, the package I shipped him weighed 11 pounds, the package he shipped me weighed 23.  This is what I got back:

Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout
Goose Island Night Stalker Imperial Stout
Half Acre Daisy Cutter Pale Ale (x2)
Bell’s Two Hearted Ale (x3)
Three Floyds Alpha King Pale Ale (x3)
New Glarus Stone Soup
Goose Island Sophie

So I was a bit embarassed by the one sidedness of the trade.

In other news, I was able to pick up four bottles of Allagash’s very limited release of Victor Francenstein.  They only bottled 500 and released 400 of the batch, so it was a very limited release.  They said beforehand that they would only put out notice of the release on the morning of, and only on twitter and email.  So it was a random Thursday, and I was stuck at work when I got word.   I called around frantically to people, and Katie was able to have her sister pick up two bottles for me.  Towards the end of the day, it was discovered that they would be open until 5, so Katie stopped by on her way home and got two more.

The plan for the four bottles is this:  one will be opened on/at our wedding, one will be saved, and the other two are going out in trades on Monday and bringing back some beers I have really wanted to try.  I will post what is coming back once it is on my front door step, I don’t want to jinx it.

I am leaving tomorrow for St. Louis for a week, so hopefully I can bring back a little beer haul from the midwest.

A few months back we had started plans to do an overnight in order to knock off a bunch of 4000 footers.  The target was the east side of the Pemigewasset Wilderness.  The only pain was that is needed a two car spot in order to tick off six 4000 footers.

Day one was the big day of the two at about 12 miles and 4,800 feet of elevation gain. We got on the road a bit late, and after dropping off a car at the finish trailhead of North Twin Trail, we drove Katie’s car over to the start trailhead at Zealand Trailhead parking.  We hit the trail around 11:30am.   The hope was to stay at Guyot Tentsite for the night, the only problem is Guyot is a very popular campsite, and I was a bit nervous about our start time.  The plus side was that it was Friday, so Friday night at Guyot should be calmer than a Saturday night.

It was tough with the heavier pack.  I didn’t weight it but I am guessing 33 or 34 pounds.  Luckily Zealand Trail starts out super moderate and gives you a chance to get warmed up.  It is pretty flat all the way to Zealand Hut where you pick up the Twinway, where you end up putting up some pretty big elevation all the way up to Zealand Mountain.

Zeacliff was our first real viewpoint, and after reading all the trip reports about the amazing views on this trip, it was nice to actually get some of those:

We had clear weather all day Friday, and at least until we got out of the woods Saturday.  We stopped for a minute, then headed for the summit of Zealand.  We ate lunch on the wooded summit of Zealand, our first 4000 footer of the weekend.

The next summit you hit is Guyot, which is a beautiful summit, but not a 4000 footer.  The twinway from Guyot to just before the tentsite is beautiful ridge walking:

We got to the tentsite around 3:30pm, which was about 8.2 miles in around four hours.  The caretaker wasn’t at his tent, so we dropped our stuff on a platform and setup our tents, just to claim a spot.  We couldn’t have timed it better, because it was like musical chairs as we were leaving to go summit the Bonds, with everyone scurrying to drop their stuff at a tentsite.

Summiting the Bonds took the rest of day one.  We hiked over to Mt. Bond, which is on the trail on the way over to Bondcliff.  You end up summiting Mt. Bond twice, once on the way over to Bondcliff, and again on the way back.  The trail from the campsite to Mt. Bond is not bad at all, very moderate climb.  The same cannot be said about the trail from Mt. Bond to Bondcliff.  Lots of boulders and rough footing, and a large amount of descent and ascent.  But the view from both summits is amazing, first is Mt. Bond:

This is a shot of Bondcliff from Mt. Bond:

And here are some shots from Bondcliff:

Legs started to hit the wall on the way back up to Mt. Bond.  It was a long day to this point, and resummiting Mt. Bond was nice.  It was a pretty moderate walk back down to the junction where West Bond’s spur trail leads to the summit of that mountain.  It was the last one of the day, and it was nice to stand atop the summit and know the peaks were done for the day.  We opened up an Oskar Blue’s Gubna Imperial IPA on the summit, which made the walk from West Bond back to the tentsite hurt a bit less.  Here are some shots from the summit of West Bond, the first one is of Bondcliff:

We ended up getting back to the tentsite hungry and ragged around 7pm, just in time to get dinner started while the sun went down.  Camping food always tastes more delicious because usually you are ravenously hungry, this time was no exception.  But we pounded some rehydrated meals and desserts and pretty much crashed.  Here’s Henry hanging out at the campsite:

A note about Henry’s performance on the trip.  This was his first backpacking trip, and by far the hardest two days  of hiking he has done.  Katie might disagree, because he was attached to her the whole hike, but I thought he did incredibly well as far as the hiking goes.  He also did very well sleeping in a tent for the first time.  At night he just pretty much nested and crashed, and didn’t care where he was.  He was pretty well riled up in the morning when it dawned on him he wasn’t in our house, but didn’t act out too much.  The only negative for him was he had a couple freakouts with other dogs on the trail.  We don’t know if it was tiredness, or he was excited about where he was, but he freaked the f out.  But here are some shots of him and Katie on the trail:

Back to the trip report though.  Henry woke us up around sun rise, so we started making coffee  and breaking down camp.  We ended up hitting the trail around 8am, and started cruising over to South Twin.  The plan was to hit South Twin and North Twin, and then descend to the car.  Sore legs made day two a bit slower, but the views were great again, here are some shots from North and South Twin:

The descent from North Twin was pretty rough, and the water crossings were pretty difficult even with all the dryness we have had this summer.  I can’t imagine trying to do these with high water.  But after about 8 miles on day two, we emerged at Tom’s car.  Henry promptly collapsed in the parking lot and just laid down.

Tom drove us back to Katie’s car, where Henry promptly passed out in the back seat:

We stopped at the White Mountain Cider Company on the way back for lunch and some pastries.

All in all, a good trip.  We got lucky with the weather, with the tent site and everyone got back safe and healthy.  Six more 4000 footers off the list.  That’s 37 for Tom and I, 32 for Katie, and 20 that Jessamyn has done with us.  Getting there.

To summarize the Wildman Biathlon experience in three words I would use painful, scenic, and badass. I know badass isn’t really a word, but it’s my blog, and screw you for judging me. Anyway, Saturday was my first attempt at the Wildman, which is a race consisting of a 10K run, a 22.3 mile bike portion, and a 3 mile mountain run. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to enter.

I knew I would be training for the Beach to Beacon, and I go for rides on the bike often, and hike a decent amount, so I thought it would be a good way to combine them all.  A suggestion for anyone thinking about doing this race – do not look at previous years results, and don’t look at topo maps or elevation profiles for the course.  Actually, stop reading now, cause I’m going to show you elevation profiles of the course.  I looked at info all last week and just ended up working myself up about the difficulty.

Before I get into the course, I want to thank Tom and Jessamyn for hosting me Friday night, getting up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning to drive up to Shelburne, NH, making dinner and breakfast and lunch for me, being my support crew, taking tons of photos and for their support.  Also, I want to thank my Mom and Dad for driving all the way to Wildcat to cheer me on and for their support.  All the photos below are from Jessamyn’s camera, so all rights reserved by her if you try to steal them.

So, onto the race.  It was a 8am guntime, so we got up at Tom’s at 5am and hit the road by 5:30am.  I had registered online, but had to pick up my packet and setup my transition area, and it was an hour and a half drive up to the start in Shelburne, New Hampshire.  We got up to the start at 7am, which ended up being the perfect amount of time to unload, set up transition, pick up my packet and drive the 10K course.  Here’s the town garage in Shelburne where the start and first transition was at and then the transition area with my bike, number 198, in the foreground:

I ran Beach to Beacon in just under 48:00, so I was thinking I would be happy around 50:00, depending on how I felt.  The course was really hilly, but with tapering and training, my legs felt fine. There were only around 120 entrants, so the start was a bit different than the 6,000 at the start of the Beach to Beacon:

Here is the elevation profile, nothing huge, but with an out and back route, you get to do them twice:

I have to say, it felt weird to pace myself, and not push, and also weird to not kick at the end of a race.  The course was beautiful though, farms, a winding country road, and more farms.

I felt good on the 10K, and felt strong as I wrapped it up.  Jessamyn and Tom were at the finish, after wrapping up their own run in their marathon training and getting back to the 10K finish in time for my transition. I wrapped up the 10K in 50:33 on my watch, 50:49 on Wildman’s clock, which was 88th out of 117 for that leg. Here are their shots of the end of my 10K, and transitioning to the bike:

The bike consisted of leaving the town garage, heading out onto Route 2, taking Route 2 up to North Road, and taking North Road back to the Shelburne garage. This first lap is about 7 miles. Once the first lap is done, you head back out onto Route 2, continuining this time to the junction with Route 16, where you take a left onto Route 16 and continute up to Wildcat.

The run to bike transition was my first race transition I have ever completed. It was pretty much what you think it will be. Take off some stuff, put some other stuff on, get on the bike, start riding. My legs felt pretty good getting on the bike, and I headed out to Route 2. Early on the bike I got passed alot. Part of that was I was trying to get some Honey Stinger Gels into my mouth and pound some Gatorade. But once I settled in I was able to get into a rhythm, and get some miles averaging over 20mph. Here is a shot of me finishing the first lap, before heading out onto Route 2 again:

The funny thing about this bike ride is the disparity between the first and second half. The first half is lots of relatively flat, or slightly rolling, sections. The second half is brutal and painful. To give you an idea, have a gander at this elevation profile:

That’s 1624 feet of elevation gain, with 1200 of that coming in the last six miles.  Easily the hardest bike I have ever done, and I was out of the saddle cranking for the last mile.  I ended up averaging around 9 miles and hour for the last two miles, for an overall bike average of 15.6mpg.  Anyway, when it was over, I was a happy camper, here I am entering the parking lot of Wildcat and transitioning from the bike to trail run:

I ended up doing the bike in 1:25:40, with the first transition built in, which was 69th out of 116 entrants. Transitioning from bike to run was tough. My legs started cramping up and I thought I might be in trouble. But I was able to get moving and jogged from transition to the first real up hill. It was nice having the family at transition, and realizing there was only three miles between me and beer and food.

Tom let me use his fuel belt for this section, so I had four bottles of Gatorade and a couple more Honey Stingers Gels for the uphill climb. I had drank a bottle of Gatorade and a bottle of Accelerade on the bike, and eaten two Honey Stingers Gels on the bike. So nutrition wasn’t really a big issue on this race. But it might be a little while before I can eat honey again.

There isn’t much I can say about the hill climb, other than it was really tough. My legs were shutting down, my lower back was incredibly tired, but it’s one of those situations where you just put one foot in front of the other. I tried to jog a few times, but it was pretty fruitless. There is a stretch at 1.5 miles where you get three back to back pitches of about 30% grade, and it friggin hurts. With only 3 miles to cover about 2,000 feet of elevation gain, there isn’t really any breaks. Here’s the elevation profile for the hike:

I realized I was getting close when I saw some spectators.  Tom had climbed down for the last few hundred yards.  I walked with him for a minute, then jogged to the finish.  I wrapped up the hill climb in 56:15, which was 62 out of 114 people.  I was a bit light headed crossing the line, but luckily there are lots of places to sit and some beautiful views.  Here are some shots of me finishing:

I crushed some watermelon, then we took the gondola down. Jessamyn got some pictures of the Norton family at the bottom:

So to wrap it all up, it was hard, but fun.  I ended up overall with a 73 place finish out of 114 people.  It was the toughest field I have competed with.  On the bright side, I did beat three relay teams, so that helps.  It was easily the most difficult thing I have done physically, but I felt surprisingly good after and the next day.  Not that I felt good, but just not as bad as I thought I would.

The course is difficult, but beautiful.  The 10K is the most scenic course I have done, the bike ride was very nice, especially on Route 16 when Mt. Adams appears and then Wildcat and Washington poke out towards the end.  And the view on the Polecat Trail up the hiking portion was covered extensively when we hiked it.

The race was run impeccably, all the transitions were easy, the course was incredibly well marked, and they even put down rubber mats on the notorious rail crossings that have been known to eat bike tires.  I had a great time, and will be registering for 2011 as soon as posssible.

I just completed my first beer trade on the BeerAdvocate website.  BeerAdvocate is a combination of a beer rating system, a beer news site, but mostly a combination of various beer related forums.  One of those forums is a trading section where individuals can set up beer trades.

Trades can vary from people swapping super rare bottles of limited production beer to people in different parts of the country swapping their favorite locals that don’t have distribution in the other person’s neck of the woods.  In my case, since it was my first trade, I went with what’s called a $4$ trade, or translated, dollar for dollar.  Basically you agree on a dollar amount, and then you both go out and spend that amount on beer.  The beer is packed, and then shipped to the other person by UPS or Fedex (the vast majority of traders avoid the USPS due to legal issues with shipping beer). 

My trade was with a guy from California.  He let me know the types of beer he likes (IPA’s and Stouts) and we agreed on a $30 $4$ trade.  So here’s what I sent out:

Allagash Black
Smuttynose IPA
Smuttynose Big Beer Series “Big A” IPA
Bar Harbor Brewing Cadillac Mountain Stout
Maine Beer Company Peeper Ale
Long Trail Brewmasters Series Double IPA
Allagash Wit
Long Trail Pale Ale
Shipyard Puglsey Signature Series XXXX IPA

Here’s what I got back:
Firestone Walker Pale Ale
Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA
Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye
Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
Lagunitas Lucky 13 Red Ale
Oskar Blues Gubna
Bruery Orchard White
Bootleggers Brewery Rustic Rye IPA

First couple will get opened up if the Wildman goes well tomorrow.

• Name: Pliny The Wildman Double IPA
• BJCP Style: 14C – Imperial IPA
• Brew Date: 8.15.2010
• Target OG: 1.071
• Target FG: 1.011
• IBU: 105
• ABV: 8%
• Batch Size: 6 Gallons

• 13.5lbs 2 Row Pale Ale Malt
• 10oz Cara-Pils Malt
• 10oz Crystal 40L
• 12oz Dextrose
• 3.5 oz Columbus Hops (90 Min @ 14%AA)
• .75 oz Columbus Hops (45 Min @ 7.3%AA)
• 1 oz Simcoe Hops (30 Min @ 12.3%AA)
• 1 oz Centennial Hops (0 Min @ 8%AA)
• 2.5 oz Simcoe Hops (0 Min @ 13%AA)
• 1 oz Simcoe Hops (Dry Hop @ 13% for 12 Days)
• 1 oz Columbus Hops (Dry Hop @ 14% for 12 Days)
• 1 oz Centennial Hops (Dry Hop @ 10% for 12 Days)
• .25 oz Centennial Hops (Dry Hop @ 10% for 5 Days)
• .25 oz Simcoe Hops (Dry Hop @ 13% for 5 Days)
• .25 oz Columbus Hops (Dry Hop @ 14% for 5 Days)
• WLP001 – California Ale Yeast
• Mash @ 152F for 60 Minutes
• Boil for 90 Minutes

Hopefully Sunday will be a brewday, as long as I survive Saturday’s Wildman Race, and am moving around sufficiently to brew.  If I do brew, it will be a Pliny the Elder clone.    Pliny the Elder is a beer released by Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, CA.  Pliny is named after Roman jack of all trades Gaius Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the Elder.  Pliny is the man who gave hops their biological name, humulus lupulus.

Currently the top ranked beer in the US on Beer Advocate, Pliny the Elder is a beer geek’s dream.  Tough to get your hands on because the owner of Russian River, Vinnie Cilurzo, demands that kegs and bottles are fresh, so for us East Coast people, it’s impossible.

So, I have decided to make a Double IPA inspired by PtE.  I haven’t had the beer myself, so I don’t care so much that it’s close just that it’s delicious.  With half a pound of hops in the boil for a five gallon batch, and another quarter pound dry hopped, there will be alot of plant matter going into this beer.

I can only make a five gallon batch, because the OG is 1.071, and the grain to get the OG that high would overload the mash tun if I wanted a ten gallon batch.  Another issue with making a Pliny clone is usually the cost of the hops.  But I found a new hop distributor who makes a PtE hop kit, Farmhouse Brewing Supply.  I have to say, at $12.50, that’s less than $1 an ounce, which is impressive.  Also, the owner packages each addition seperately and tags them, so you know what addition is going in when, without dealing with a scale.  That will make brew day much easier.

My water needs to get modified pretty well on this one.  On a high hopped beer like this, the sulfates need to get up so that hop bite comes through.  I am shooting for water profile of 102ppm of Calcium, 32ppm of Magnesium, 34ppm of Sodium, 48ppm of Chloride, 330ppm of Sulfate and 29ppm of Alkalinity as CaCO3.

This one will be about a month before it goes into the keg.  With all the dry hopping and the amount of sugar that the yeast needs to eat, and then another week on the CO2, this one will probably not be ready for wedding time, but hopefully not long after.

Update Post Brew: Got up early the day after the Wildman and cranked this one out.  Hit the mash temps, and with the help of some rice hulls, the sparge went super smooth.  Got 73% efficiency, so I actually had to dilute the finished product to end up with a OG of 1.071.  Boil went well, tons of hop additions, and the beer is in the bucket.  In honor of this being a Pliny clone and finishing the Wildman yesterday, the beer has been changed to Pliny The Wildman.

Saturday was my first crack at the Beach to Beacon.  It was the second 10K I have run, following up last November’s Great Osprey 10K.  This time I didn’t just haphazardly add mileage on, causing a plantar fasia tear.  Tom emailed me Hal Higdon’s Intermediate 10K Training Program, and after making some modifications to get some cycling in, ended up with a training program that really helped.

I got lucky with registration, getting Katie and I in on the first try before it sold out.  So once it was booked, we actually had to do it.

Training during this incredibly hot and sticky summer proved pretty crappy, but for race day we got some randomly cool, almost crisp weather.  I guess it’s better to go that way, train in the heat, run when it’s cool, then the opposite.  I would have to guess at race time it would have been high 50’s, low 60’s and cloudy.  Perfect for a race.

I wasn’t sure how my body would respond with the tapering.  I have never tapered for a race before, so I wasn’t sure how I would bounce back.  I know I had a tough time running race pace on my training runs, so I wasn’t sure how I would do it for 6.2 miles.  Tom gave me some great tips, like running the last couple miles of the long runs at race pace just to train your body to run fast when tired.  I wanted a sub 50 minute finish, meaning I had to run 8:02 miles.  My plan was to go out for the first two miles at race pace, and then see what happened from there.

I have to say up front, the Garmin 305 I bought back in April was a godsend for training, and especially for the race.  With the auto lap set at half a mile, I could look down and see real time pace, the pace I was running for that half mile, and the watch would beep and display my half mile splits as each one passed.  It was nice both from a data standpoint, and psychologically to see each one of those .5 mile tick off at sub four minutes, meaning each mile was under 8 minutes.

I felt ok in the first mile, usually where I feel nervous and queasy.  Starting a race with that many people was crazy/amazing/annoying.  I started about a third of the way back in the 8 minute mile seeding area.  That was a mistake.  I spent the first two miles getting really annoyed and passing people to get into a steady pace.

When I made the turn onto Old Ocean House road and entered mile three, I started to feel like sub 50 was a reality.  I was cruising downhill and felt amazing.  The hill at the other end of Old Ocean House made my legs feel a bit weak, but my breathing and lungs felt great.  The crowd when I turned onto Route 77 was a nice jolt of energy. 

When I hit the 5k mark, my time was 24:30.  I was right on pace for a 49:00 minute 10K.  I knew Shore Road would be quick, with lots of downhill, and the last mile is a surge of adrenaline.  I still felt great and was passing lots of people on Shore Road.  The crowds lining the road at this point was a nice mental break and energizing.

The last two miles went by as a 7:34 and a 7:34, which hurt a bit on that second one since mile 5 is lots of uphill.  You turn into Fort Williams at around 5.8 miles, then go immediately uphill.  The crowd here is three or four deep, which is great, because you need it.  I kicked to the end, running the last .2 at a 6:37 pace, finishing in 47:55.  Here are my half mile/mile splits:

I was happy with the time, but I definitely had more in the tank.  I could have dropped the time a bit lower, but I guess the Sergey Bubka method of not dropping too much off the PR isn’t too bad either.  But I did get about six minutes off my 10K PR, so gotta be happy with that.

I also wanted to point out, everyone hit their times on Saturday.  Katie wanted to run sub 1:00:00, and did that.  Tom, Jessamyn, Missy, Russ and Amy all hit their times too.  No one got hurt, beautiful day, have to be happy with that result.

Now the easy race is done, on to the Wildman Biathlon next week.

• Name: Pretty Girl From Amarillo/Willamette Pale Ale
• BJCP Style: 10A – American Pale Ale
• Brew Date: 8.1.2010
• Target OG (Actual OG): 1.057 (1.058)
• Target FG: 1.011
• IBU: 41
• ABV: 6%
• Batch Size: 10 gallons

• 17.5lbs American Two Row Pale Malt
• 4lbs Vienna Malt
• 1lb Crystal 10L Malt
• .85 oz Columbus Hops (65 Min @ 14%AA)
• 1.75 oz Cascade Hops (30 Min @ 7.3%AA)
• .50 oz Cascade Hops (15 Min @ 7.3%AA)
• .75 oz Cascade Hops (5 Min @ 7.3%AA)
• 1 oz Amarillo/Willamette Hops (Dry Hop @ 7.5%/5% for 7 Days)
• Nottingham Dry Yeast/Safale US-05 Dry Yeast
• Mash @ 150F for 60 Minutes
• Boil for 60 Minutes

Sunday was my first 10 gallon brew day.  Usually my batches are 5 gallons, but I decided with how much I liked the Pale Ale last time, to go bigger this time.  The last batch dissapeared way too quickly, so I doubled the batch size.  I was a bit apprehensive about how much time it would take, but figured even if it extended my brew day by some time, it was easier than doing a whole seperate brewday to make another five gallons.

With the size of my Igloo cooler mash tun, the biggest beer I can make 10 gallons of and fit all the grain in is a 1.060 beer.  So I decided to max it out and make my 1.058 OG Pale Ale.  The ten gallons are made in the same way as a five gallon batch, just more volume in each step.  The two 5.5 gallon batches are then split into two fermenters.

I decided that since they are going into two different fermenters, why not experiment a little?  So one batch is getting Nottingham Dry Yeast and dry hopped with Amarillo Hops just like last time, but the other batch is getting Safale US-05 Dry Yeast and dry hopped with Willamette.  The name of the two beers is a play on The Avett Brothers’ song titles that all start with “Pretty Girl From”.

So in the end, doing a ten gallon batch cost me about half hour to forty five minutes extra, not bad since a whole other batch would have cost me four hours.  This was a quick turnaround beer, so I should have three ready for the wedding.  Good deal.

Sunday was the Grain To Glass event at Novare Res featuring Dogfish Head brewery of Milton, Delaware and Grain Surfboards of York, Maine. 

When Katie and I showed up, we were greeted by a large sign from ZeropointZero productions announcing that by entering Novare Res, we were allowing ourselves to be filmed for their show “Brewed“ that will be on the Discovery Channel.  We went inside to grab some beer, and found ourselves promply in a converation with Sam Calagione, founder and owner of Dogfish Head, and craft brewing rockstar.  It was a bit weird having a conversation with someone whos work you admire so much, all the while a camera and lights are staring at you.  Sam was incredibly nice though, and we talked about his Maine connections (his parents own a camp in Maine, and Dogfish Head is named after a land feature up near Boothbay), about the documentary he was in “Beerwars“, and about Allagash and his friendship with Rob Tod.  He even gave us a glass of Pangea to share, which ended up being Katie’s favorite beer of the day.  He also told us they would be tapping a “super, secret” beer later. 

CJ joined us at this point, which just added to the festivities.  My first pour was My Antonia, a collaboration beer Dogfish did with Italian brewer Birra Del Borgo.  It’s a continually hopped Imperial Pilsner, and it’s delicious.  Second pour was Theobroma which is one of Dogfish Head’s Ancient Ale series where they try to replicate ancient beer recipes.  This beer was created by doing a chemical analysis on pottery fragments from Honduras.  The result is a golden colored beer that has Aztec cocoa powder and cocoa nibs, chiles and honey.  We were shocked at how light in color this beer was, and it was delicious.  Third pour was the Black & Blue, a belgian golden ale that is fermented with blackberries and blueberries, and definitely blurs the line between beer and wine.  The final pour was on recommendation from CJ, and it was a great pick.  I got the Burton Baton, and I was blown away at how good this beer was.  The way Dogfish describes the brewing of Burton Baton as starting with two “threads”, an Imperial IPA and an English Old Ale, which are then blended and put in oak tanks.  The vanilla and wood take the edge of the maltiness of the Imperial IPA, and make an incredibly balanced beer. 

At some point in the day, the “super, secret” beer Sam had alluded to was tapped.   ”Grain to Glass” is a brown ale that was aged on scrap cedar from Grain’s Surfboards.  The story of the beer is on Grain’s blog, but in a nutshell, some Dogfish employees came to a surf film festival at Grain’s shop, saw the scrap wood, and a collaboration was born.  Basically the beer is only available at Dogfish Head’s brewpub, the GABF and at this event at Novare Res.

All in all, this was exactly what a beer nerd event like this is supposed to be.  You get to drink rarities, talk beer, rub elbows with beer stars like Sam Calagione and Jason Perkins, head brewer at Allagash who showed up to drink some Dogfish.  Some freebies aren’t bad, and nice weather on the deck with friends really just rounded the day out.

Scottish brewer Brewdog has announced that they have again set the record for highest alcohol content in a beer.  If you haven’t seen the backstory on the battle between Brewdog and German brewer Schorschbräu Schorschbock, Paste Magazine has a good rundown of the back and forth.  The newest release comes in at 55% ABV, and only 12 bottles were produced.  They will set you back around $800-$1100, and are now sold out.  But for that kind of dough it does come in a taxidermied squirrel, so you got that going for you.  Brewdog said this is as high as they will go on ABV.  It is rumored in order to produce the super strong Belgian blonde they started with 200 bottles worth of beer, which are frozen to remove the water and concentrate the beer to 55% ABV levels.

In more local beer news, Novare Res will be having a cool event on Sunday.  Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head, will be in town along with 23 of Dogfish Head’s beers.  They are having a “Grain to Glass” event, with Dogfish Head beers along with Grain surfboards from York, Maine.  From Rob Tod’s twitter feed, it looks like Sam is already in town, perhaps shooting the Allagash portion of his new TV show.  Either way, there should be some nice DFH rarities if there are 23 on tap, and the usual lineup will only occupy about half of that number.  The event is at 4:00pm, and the first 100 people apparently are getting some sort of pint glass.

• Name: Tripel Hopped Dwarf
• BJCP Style: 18C– Belgian Tripel
• Brew Date: 7.24.2010
• Target OG (Actual OG): 1.078 (1.084)
• Target FG: 1.006
• IBU: 58
• ABV: 9.4%

• 10.75lbs Belgian Pilsner Malt
• 2lbs Belgian Blond Candi Sugar
• .75 oz Columbus Hops (60 Min @ 11%AA)
• .35 oz Columbus Hops (20 Min @ 11%AA)
• 1.25 oz Saaz Hops (7 Min @ 4%AA)
• .75 oz Amarillo Hops (Dry Hop @ 7.5% for 21 Days)
• Belgian Ale Blend Yeast (White Labs WLP575)
• Mash @ 143.6F for 20 Minutes, 154.4 152 for 70 Minutes 
• Boil for 90 Minutes

Saturday will be another brew day.  This one is going to be reusing the yeast slurry that is sitting at the bottom of the fermenter from the Schuur Huwelijk Belgian Blonde brewed a couple weeks ago.  The attempt here is to get a really hoppy tripel, something in the world of Houblon Chouffe, Pretty Things Fluffy White Rabbits, or even a Hugh Malone from Allagash right here in Portland. 

This will be my first step mash, with a rest at 144 degrees, and then one at 154.  The reason for the two mash temps is the lower rest will allow beta amylase to do its job, and the higher rest allows the alpha amylase to do it’s job.  The result, when combined with the simple candi sugar, should result in a super fermentable wort.  Combine that wort with lots of yeast slurry from the last batch, and a higher fermentation temp, and we should be looking at a super dry beer, with lots of hop presence. 

I’m switching to a plate chiller for the first time, a Shirron, so hopefully the whole process will be a bit easier, and go a bit smoother.  We shall see.

Updated: Brew went relatively smoothly.  Kind of annoying with a 90 minute mash (in order to do a step) and a 90 minute boil (to drive off DMS due to the large amount of Pilsner malt) which added about an hour onto my brew day.  Overshot my original gravity, coming in at about 83% efficiency, much higher than my normal 70-73%. 

The Shirron worked out well, got the beer from boiling to 70F in about ten minutes.  Pitched the yeast at around 68F.  Lots of sugar in this one, so the fermentation should take awhile, but the large amount of yeast from the last beer should get to work on that quickly.