Devils Backbone Brewing Company

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