yuppicide
Member
It's been awhile since I posted here. I think I originally came here thinking about a beer with a bacon flavor. People said I need to start simple, but that's not me.. I am interested in unique things. So, I kind of eventually let that go out of my mind, mostly because I saw a few bacon flavored beers on the market such as the Rogue Maple Bacon Ale, and one or two other brands. I'm not afraid of wasting money and making a crap batch of beer. If at first you don't succeed try again, right?
Every once in awhile I think of interesting beers and wanting to make something. This time I went for it.. not brewing myself at home yet, but I got my tax return and booked a full beer brewing session with Grape Beginnings (http://www.grapebeginningswine.com/ ). They're in Eatontown, New Jersey. You can do wine or beer here.
I'm not totally familiar with it, but they offer cheaper classes, which to me sound like you take it with a few other people? I could be wrong. You get to bring one guest and take home 3 bottles, 22 ounces each. I signed up for the full brew session. It's just me and the brewmaster. I can bring up to four guests I think and we'll take home 60 bottles, 22 ounces each.
Everyone I have spoken with here is super friendly. They put me on schedule and emailed me an invoice so I could leave a deposit. What I liked is that I could pay the invoice at my leisure.. I didn't get paid until Friday and I didn't need to bug someone to update the invoice taking off my deposit price, etc. It's done through Quickbooks/Intuit, so the deposit was deducted automatically and I could just go back to my email and click the link to make the rest of my payment.
Their location is close to Route 35, not too far from the Garden State Parkway, so it's easy to get to. They're in a business complex, were easy to find, and there's lots of parking. The inside was clean and bright. They have a bunch of tables to sit at.
Before going, I discussed with Jeff their brewmaster that I wanted to do something a little different. He was very accommodating. I explained what two ideas I wanted to do (more on that later). He actually put some thought and research into it. Talking to Jeff in person he seemed very knowledgeable and interested in the science of brewing. He's personable and explains everything. He was discussing some of the other brews he's either done or is in the process of doing. He's making one using fresh figs, which sounds awesome. We got to smell a Raspberry Wheat that someone else was making and it smelled amazing!! Strongest raspberry smelling beer I've ever came across. I might be interested in trying something like that in the future.
Plan on being here a few hours. Either bring some sandwiches or something with you or go out somewhere for lunch. This is all grain brewing. They use software, but recipes tweaked for their facility and tweaked to each individual person. You'll do the first part of brewing such as making and stirring your wort.. I think we then hung out or come back an hour later, where your wort goes into the boiling kettle where we added some stuff including my special ingredient at a specified time during the boiling process. The whole thing gets quickly cooled down and transferred to a container to sit for about four weeks. After that you'll come back to do the bottling process.
I must say it smells incredible in there while the whole process is going on. It's kind of like a hot breakfast cereal on steroids cooking.
Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures, but they took a few which may end up on their Facebook page. I think they shot some video also, which I hope my idiot commentary isn't in.
But anyway, not sure what else to say.. I'd definitely recommend people to go here.. you'll learn a few things, get a little hands on, have a nice day out with some nice friends, but in the end they'll clean up and you can go home. I'm actually planning on going back once more and bringing a friend with me.
So, I am sure you're wondering what were the ideas of beer I wanted to brew? Well.. the first one some people here are not going to like.. tomato beer. Sure there's Tom's Pizza Beer, but I am not interested in oregano or basil. Our whole family is big on Jersey Tomatoes. I just want a drink with a refreshing tomato flavor. I see people brew tomato wine. I found one company in Canada that actually sells it, but they can't import it into the United States. We're going to try that next time.
For this time I'm making a beer infused with white pine needles. I love tea and I saw online that some people make tea out of certain pine needles, so I bought some. Sure, I live right in the middle of the Pine Barrens (for those of you not from New Jersey it's basically an area with a crap load of pine trees) and I could have picked them myself, but I ordered them from a farm. They are pesticide free, which I'm not sure around where I live, and safe.
When I discussed the idea with Jeff, neither of us knew how much we were going to use. I explained that if things go wrong then I wouldn't blame them, but Jeff had a good approach to the whole thing. We went with an Amber Ale. That was my original idea to begin with.. something light to medium body.. I wanted the pine to be pronounced. I was hoping people would say "Do I detect a hint of pine?". The scent of the pine is strong, but not as strong as say hop pellets. We used about an ounce of pine in a cheese cloth bag during boiling. This way we were pretty sure the flavor wouldn't be too overpowering. Afterwards, we used a hydrometer to test the gravity of our beer and it was pretty dead on to what our recipe said. We then tasted it. It's kind of sweet, but obviously all the sugars aren't out and the beer isn't finished. We decided we're going to dry hop some more pine in. This way we can control the final taste precisely. If we need more later we can add more in.
Here's a picture of my label:
It's fine with me that we brewed an ale and not a lager. I know there is a difference in yeast and stuff like that. I just liked the name.. Logger Lager kind of rolls off the tongue.. it's only for myself and family/friends, so it really doesn't matter to me. It was more of getting together with some family and having fun. I think it'll come out around 4.5% alcohol.
Find more pictures on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/makewineandbeer
Every once in awhile I think of interesting beers and wanting to make something. This time I went for it.. not brewing myself at home yet, but I got my tax return and booked a full beer brewing session with Grape Beginnings (http://www.grapebeginningswine.com/ ). They're in Eatontown, New Jersey. You can do wine or beer here.
I'm not totally familiar with it, but they offer cheaper classes, which to me sound like you take it with a few other people? I could be wrong. You get to bring one guest and take home 3 bottles, 22 ounces each. I signed up for the full brew session. It's just me and the brewmaster. I can bring up to four guests I think and we'll take home 60 bottles, 22 ounces each.
Everyone I have spoken with here is super friendly. They put me on schedule and emailed me an invoice so I could leave a deposit. What I liked is that I could pay the invoice at my leisure.. I didn't get paid until Friday and I didn't need to bug someone to update the invoice taking off my deposit price, etc. It's done through Quickbooks/Intuit, so the deposit was deducted automatically and I could just go back to my email and click the link to make the rest of my payment.
Their location is close to Route 35, not too far from the Garden State Parkway, so it's easy to get to. They're in a business complex, were easy to find, and there's lots of parking. The inside was clean and bright. They have a bunch of tables to sit at.
Before going, I discussed with Jeff their brewmaster that I wanted to do something a little different. He was very accommodating. I explained what two ideas I wanted to do (more on that later). He actually put some thought and research into it. Talking to Jeff in person he seemed very knowledgeable and interested in the science of brewing. He's personable and explains everything. He was discussing some of the other brews he's either done or is in the process of doing. He's making one using fresh figs, which sounds awesome. We got to smell a Raspberry Wheat that someone else was making and it smelled amazing!! Strongest raspberry smelling beer I've ever came across. I might be interested in trying something like that in the future.
Plan on being here a few hours. Either bring some sandwiches or something with you or go out somewhere for lunch. This is all grain brewing. They use software, but recipes tweaked for their facility and tweaked to each individual person. You'll do the first part of brewing such as making and stirring your wort.. I think we then hung out or come back an hour later, where your wort goes into the boiling kettle where we added some stuff including my special ingredient at a specified time during the boiling process. The whole thing gets quickly cooled down and transferred to a container to sit for about four weeks. After that you'll come back to do the bottling process.
I must say it smells incredible in there while the whole process is going on. It's kind of like a hot breakfast cereal on steroids cooking.
Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures, but they took a few which may end up on their Facebook page. I think they shot some video also, which I hope my idiot commentary isn't in.
But anyway, not sure what else to say.. I'd definitely recommend people to go here.. you'll learn a few things, get a little hands on, have a nice day out with some nice friends, but in the end they'll clean up and you can go home. I'm actually planning on going back once more and bringing a friend with me.
So, I am sure you're wondering what were the ideas of beer I wanted to brew? Well.. the first one some people here are not going to like.. tomato beer. Sure there's Tom's Pizza Beer, but I am not interested in oregano or basil. Our whole family is big on Jersey Tomatoes. I just want a drink with a refreshing tomato flavor. I see people brew tomato wine. I found one company in Canada that actually sells it, but they can't import it into the United States. We're going to try that next time.
For this time I'm making a beer infused with white pine needles. I love tea and I saw online that some people make tea out of certain pine needles, so I bought some. Sure, I live right in the middle of the Pine Barrens (for those of you not from New Jersey it's basically an area with a crap load of pine trees) and I could have picked them myself, but I ordered them from a farm. They are pesticide free, which I'm not sure around where I live, and safe.
When I discussed the idea with Jeff, neither of us knew how much we were going to use. I explained that if things go wrong then I wouldn't blame them, but Jeff had a good approach to the whole thing. We went with an Amber Ale. That was my original idea to begin with.. something light to medium body.. I wanted the pine to be pronounced. I was hoping people would say "Do I detect a hint of pine?". The scent of the pine is strong, but not as strong as say hop pellets. We used about an ounce of pine in a cheese cloth bag during boiling. This way we were pretty sure the flavor wouldn't be too overpowering. Afterwards, we used a hydrometer to test the gravity of our beer and it was pretty dead on to what our recipe said. We then tasted it. It's kind of sweet, but obviously all the sugars aren't out and the beer isn't finished. We decided we're going to dry hop some more pine in. This way we can control the final taste precisely. If we need more later we can add more in.
Here's a picture of my label:
It's fine with me that we brewed an ale and not a lager. I know there is a difference in yeast and stuff like that. I just liked the name.. Logger Lager kind of rolls off the tongue.. it's only for myself and family/friends, so it really doesn't matter to me. It was more of getting together with some family and having fun. I think it'll come out around 4.5% alcohol.
Find more pictures on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/makewineandbeer
But now that you mention it, it's just a grey background.. I can edit that! I hadn't even thought about it.. I figured I'd just let it be.
