Devils Backbone Brewing Company

This week I brewed three IPA's.  The first was our year round American IPA, the Eight Point IPA.  The Eight Point is hopped with Columbus, Centennial, and Simcoe hops and clocks in around 5.9-6.0% abv.

The second IPA I brewed was the return of the Congo Pale Ale, a Belgian-influenced IPA.  The name comes from the "what if" Belgians made a hoppy beer for their colonists, it wouldn't be an India Pale Ale it would be a Congo Pale Ale.  For the historically deficient, Belgium had a colony in the Congo.  Last year I used the European hops Saaz and Northern Brewer. This year I decided to add a little more of an American punch by dropping the Northern Brewer and adding Chinook and Sorachi Ace, while retaining a touch of Saaz.   Expect this years to be a little more hop forward.  Hopefully the Chinook will add a pleasant pine note with the Sorachi Ace providing a hint of lemon. I used a different Belgian yeast that produces less banana and bubblegum flavors and more spicy pear and apple which I think will work better with the hops. 

The third IPA brewed this week is the UK-IPA.  It is a English influenced IPA brewed with Marris Otter malt, Northern Brewer & East Kent Golding hops, and fermented with the English Whitbread yeast strain.  I heavily "burtonized" the brewing water in this brew.  What that means is that I added a lot of mineral salts to get my water profile close to that of the English city of Burton-on-Trent which was famous for it's IPA's during the 19th century.  Burton-on-Trent has extremely hard water which is reported to emphasise hop bitterness and hop flavor.

Expect the Congo Pale Ale to be tapped in August and the UK-IPA to be on tap by late July.

Man is it hot in the brewery!  Recently it has been getting up to around 100 F on the brewhouse platform.  It's going to be a long hot summer.  To aid in the relief we are going to be brewing some refreshing beers this summer.  Already we have the Summer Haze on tap, which I have been having trouble explaining but I am now going to call it an "Anglo-American" wheat beer. We have the Trukker Pils currently on tap, a keller pilsner as well as a Belgian-style Wit and of course our year round Wintergreen Weiss and Gold medal winning Gold Leaf Lager for summer refreshment.  All that said, we will still have some robust beers coming this summer in addition to the refreshers.  In the fermenter eating up the sugar like a fiend is the Azreal aka Gargamel (had to be re-named because Allagash already brewed brewed a beer called Gargamel).  This is a Belgian inspired strong golden ale.  It is 7.8% abv and is dangerously drinkable for it's strength.  Expect it out for July 4th.  Brewing today is the Tye Porter, a robust English style porter that blends some aspects of strong stout with those of strong porter.  The line is always blurred between stout and porter in my eyes so to say the least will be a rich chocolaty coffee like brew.  It comes in around 7% abv and 30 IBU's.  Not your typical summer beer but who cares.  I need something to off set the light ones.  Expect it out for the Fourth of July as well.  In August we will see a return of the Congo Pale Ale, a Belgian influenced IPA that clocks in at 6.8% abv and 50 IBU's.  The hops and yeast has changed since last year so check it out in August. 

Well, back to the 100 degrees in the brewhouse and the Tye Porter brew.  Oh, yeah almost forgot.  Reilly's Red Ale will be coming out mid-June!!!  It's an "Irish-American Red Ale" that my assistant Aaron Reilly developed the recipe for.  It's going to be great, it comes in around 6.0% abv, with about 30+ IBU's coming from Cascade and Amarillo hops.  It has a rich malty backbone supported by the lively American hop varieties. 

Cheers,

Jason

I just brewed "Summer Haze" today.  It was a hugely popular beer we had on tap for most of last summer.  Describing it however is tricky.  The grist bill of Summer Haze is made with pilsner malt, malted wheat, un-malted wheat, flaked barley, and flaked corn.  It is lightly hopped with Fuggles and lightly spiced with coriander, lemon zest, and South African Rooibos herbal tea.  It is fermented with an English ale yeast strain.  This beer was influenced by both English summer ales and American wheat beers.  It is served unfiltered and garnished with a slice of lemon.  I would never garnish a Bavarian Hefeweizen with lemon but it works well with this beer.  The acidity of the lemon helps balance the beer and bring out the refreshing qualities.  The English ale yeast strain provides some interesting fruity notes that are not normally present in American wheat beers and the spices help maintain the complexity with each spice not being individually noticeable. 

 I'm a big a fan of beer styles and brewing true to style but this one doesn't quite fit.  Oh well, I need to loosen up so look forward to a few more beers that blurr styles in the future.  But for now how do I describe this English influenced, multi-grain, lightly spiced ale in a couple of words?  I'm not quite sure.  I can raid the description from last year I guess. Regardless how I describe it on our menu, we will be tapping the Summer Haze on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and will keep it on tap all summer.  I'm looking forward to it.

Cheers,

Jason

Two days ago I brewed an English-style stout that was based on an 1904 Whitbread Stout recipe.  I am really eager to taste it when it's done being a big history buff.  Look for it to go on tap the third week in May.  I used the specified English malts and the Whitbread yeast.  It will be around 5.5% abv and should have a rich coffee flavor coming from a fair amount of brown malt that's in the recipe.  This recipe being pre-WW1 is the strength of a normal microbrew.  After WW1, the beers in the UK strength dropped dramatically.  Now most UK ales are under 4% abv.  While I am a big fan of session beers I am also a fan of variety and I look forward to this taste off history.

This summer I will also brew a rendition of the first pilsner.  I just ordered the Bohemian floor malt and will use the recipe that's in the article "The First Pilsner: Recreating a Brew Revolution" by Horst Dornbusch in the March/April issue of the New Brewer magazine. The brew will be a long one because it requires the rare triple decoction mashing method which takes a lot of time.  Most brewpubs cannot do decoction mashes due to thier equipment but ours was designed in Germany to be able to do it. I think it's rewarding to do a traditional beer using traditional methods.  Look forward for this version of the original Pilsner to be on tap mid-summer. 

That's it for now, back to cleaning my fermenters.

Jason

My apologies but I felt like I had to bastardize some old Queen lyrics in celebration of our recent big win at the 2010 World Beer Cup.  Devils Backbone walked away with four medals and the grand prize in our production bracket, the "Champion Brewery and Brewmaster Small Brewpub"!!!! The medals we garnered were for the following beers and categories:

Gold - "Danzig", Baltic-style Porter category

Bronze - "Schwartz Bier", German-style Schwartzbier category

Bronze - "Morning Bear", Coffee Flavored Beer category

Bronze - "Kollaborator", Traditional German-style Bock

Especially gratifying was the fact that "Danzig" our Baltic Porter also won a silver at last years Great American Beer Festival. Also cool was the fact that the "Kollaborator" won a medal because that was a collaborative brew here at DBBC by myself and two of my very respected colleagues; John Bryce from Blacksburg Brewing company, and Matt Reich formerly of Starr Hill. 

Also cool was the brewing group my buddy Larry Horwitz works for won the Champion Large Brewpub award.  Congrats Iron Hill Brewing Company!  If ever up in the greater Philly area check out one of their locations.  They do it right.

Well that's about it for now. 

Cheers,

Jason

 http://www.worldbeercup.org/winners.html

So last Saturday I went into Charlottesville to see Lucero which is one of my favorite bands play at the Jefferson Theatre.  It was a great show and the Jefferson venue really impressed me.  I tried Sam Adams Noble Pils for the first time there and really enjoyed it.  I especially like the style of pilsner for it's grace and delicateness. I also had some Starr Hill Ambers which are one of my favorites that Starr Hill brews.  The reason  why I mention this is that this led me to be at all four Brew Ridge Trail breweries in a given week, and really in four days.  Wednesday there was a local marketing meeting held at Blue Mountain Brewing Company and I had some really incredible beers.  Their "Blue" is a Belgian-style Triple and is delicious and their orange imperial stout aged in pinot noir barrels was amazing, I forget the exact name if it but the beer was more than memorable.  Friday found me at Starr Hill dropping off World Beer Cup entries.  Starr Hill is a great neighbor to have.  They are a production brewery and share some of the logistical assets they have.  I had their new double IPA, I think its called Hop Star (keep your eyes open for it), and it was terrific.  I also had their Triple which is world class.  Saturday found me in Charlottesville and before the rock show I went to South Street Brewing Company for dinner.  I had a great Saison and an old ale called Absolution.  The Absolution was an incredible beer, get it before it's gone.  Anyway, this past week confirmed that I live in a great place with great beer.  And oh yeah, Lucero blew the doors off of the Jefferson.  Check out the Brew Ridge Trail and the band.

http://brewridgetrail.com/

http://www.luceromusic.com/site/index.php

So you like hops huh?  Well I am sitting here on the eve of brewing a new double IPA, the Ten Point IPA.  No it will not be ten % alcohol but rather the name is part of our "Buck" series of pale ales.  Let me explain.  Our house IPA, the Eight Point IPA was named after an eight point buck I saw one morning while trying to think of beer names sortly before we opened.  The "Buck" scale works not off of exact alcohol numbers but general strength.  For example, we have a seasonal beer called Four Point Pale Ale, while it was 4% abv, it was named because it was less strong than the Eight Point IPA but still hoppy.  Last winter I brewed a beer with Bob and Ellie Tupper of Tuppers Hop Pocket fame called Twelve Point IPA (on premise) and Tuppers Deep Pockets (off premise).  This new Ten Point IPA will fall in strength between out normal IPA and the Twelve Point.  It should clock in at 7.8% abv, and be supper hoppy.  I'm not even going to guess at the IBU's.  Essentially I'm adding twice the hops that's in our normal house IPA. 

The Ten Point IPA is inspired by some of the west coasts double IPA's, especially Pizza Ports / Port Brewing Hop 15.  That beer is brewed with 15 different hops added every 15 minutes of the boil.  The Ten Point IPA will be brewed with ten types of hops added ten times during the boil.  I will add two pound of each hop to a large bucket and mix them. Then I will had the hop mixture ten times during the boil to create what I can only imagine to be pure hop fury.  The hops going into this beer are the following; Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Simcoe, Amarillo, Willamette, Fuggle, East Kent Goldings, Saaz, and Hallertau Tradition.  I will also dry hop this beer with the same hop mixture.

Expect to see this on tap in April.

Hoppy Trails,

Jason

Well it's a new year and a lot is planned for it.  We are having our second Mug Club Party Monday February 1.  I will be bringing out two vintage beers to celebrate, the oak aged Kilt Flasher Wee Heavy and the Grand Cru Belgian-style ale.  The next day I will be at the legendary Brickskeller in DC presenting our Tectonic Barleywine and the Kollaborator Dopplebock at the annual "Strong Beer Tasting".  The Kollaborator Dopplebock was a collaboration between my friends Matt Reich (former Head Brewer at Starr Hill) and John Bryce, Brewmaster of Blacksburg Brewing Company. All three of us have a lot of experience with German-style beers.  Matt did an internship at a brewery in Germany and John graduated from the Brewmaster's Program at VLB, a well regarded brewing school in Berlin.

We still are maintaining ten house beers on tap.  In the fermenters and aging tanks yet to go on tap are the following:

Schwartz Bier - German-style black lager

Three Ridges Belgian Triple - Belgian-style Triple

Old Virginia Dark - Old School American Dark Lager, brewed especially for the 75th anniversary of the beer can (originated in Richmond) and the Blue & Grey Breweriana show in Fredericksburg, VA feb 10-13th.

Turbo Cougar - Gourmet malt Liquor

Dead Bear Imperial Stout - English-style Imperial Stout

Imperial NBA (Nelson Brown Ale - A blend of dopplebock, imperial stout, and barleywine lightly dry hopped with Centennial hops. (65 gallons made)

Oak Aged Kollaborator - Dopplebock aged on both toasted oak spirals and chopped up barrels from Belmont Farms Distillery in Culpeper, VA. (65 gallons made)

Ale of Fergus - The original Scottish 60 Shilling ale.  A great dark malty session beer.

So, that's whats in store. More to follow.

Cheers,

Jason

Man, what a year it's been here at DBBC.  We celebrated our year anniversary three weeks ago by hosting our first Mug Club Party which included a revisiting of two of our favorite past beers that I tucked away for just such a special occasion. One was a keg of Congo Pale Ale (Belgian influenced IPA) and the other was a keg of the Dead Bear Imperial Stout.  Both beers showed an amazing complexity that only comes with age.  I have set aside other beers for future special releases, I have quite a collection of past favorites awaiting a good reason to dip into them. 

Over the last year we have brewed 31 different seasonal beers.  That's 31 different beer styles!  I am proud of the variety that we have and I like to say we "bring a world of beer to Nelson County".  Plus it's just plain fun to brew such a diversity of beers.  In addition to the variety I am proud of our showing at this years Great American Beer Festival where we won four medals!!  A Gold in International Pilsner, a Silver in Vienna-style Lager, a Silver in Baltic-style Porter, and a Silver in Keller/Zwickle Beer.  One Gold and three Silvers.  Not bad for being less than a year old at the time!

Anyway, this is my first blog so I'll keep it short and sweet.  Thanks to everyone who has come out here and tried our beer and food. 

Cheers,

Jason