Cali trip report - Part III

Day 6
After cleaning up our campsite and packing up the rig, we headed southwest from Foresthill and again through Sacramento. I managed to see the Golden Gate Bridge from a rest stop, which was as close to San Francisco as we'd come. Roughly 15 miles north of San Fran is the suburb of Novato, where Moylan's Brewery is located.


Kat had a classmate with a connection to Moylan's and thankfully he was able to get us in touch with Brendan Moylan, the owner of the brewery. After we sat and enjoyed a sampler of their fine brews, we met up with Brendan who gave us a brief tour of the brewery. We were impressed that everything is done right here at the brewpub in Novato, from brewing to kegging and bottling. the restaurant/pub is one side of the building, while the other is split into three floors that house the brewery. Brendan was great, and we really appreciated him taking time out to give us a personalized tour.

We took it fairly easy at Moylan's, since the plan was to visit two more breweries later in the day. From Novato we traveled north on US-101 just 15 miles to Petaluma, home to one of our favorite breweries, Lagunitas. I've been drinking their beer since before I met Kat, which was seven years ago. I had wanted to visit their headquarters for quite awhile and I was brimming with anticipation when we reached the city limits of Petaluma.

As we pulled into their driveway, I began to feel a bit unsettled. Unlike Moylan's, which has an inviting look from the outside with flags and enormous grain silos, Lagunitas was right in the middle of an industrial business park. We pulled into a parking spot and sat there, staring at what looked like a warehouse. Sure, there were kegs out front and employees wearing company t-shirts, but I couldn't help but think, "This? This is what I've been waiting years to come visit?" With some uncertainty, we exited the truck and walked over to the building. A sign pointed us away from the warehouse towards the office were we went to check in.


The front office was much more welcoming, with all kinds of memorabilia and framed news articles about the brewery on the walls. Stephanie welcomed us, and after waiting a few minutes for any others, we left the office to begin the tour. The tour started in the Lagunitas tasting room, where Stephanie began pouring 6oz tastes of each of their regular brews, not waiting for us to finish the previous ale. They were surprised at our knowledge of the brewery, and tried finding beers we hadn't already tasted. She did find one; the Hop Stoopid Ale, which is as the name suggests, an IPA with a ridiculous amount of hops. I managed to talk her into letting us take a bottle with us, which we'll save for some special occasion.

The tasting room was a comfortable loft that sits above the brewery. Lined with old couches, a Foosball table and a vintage upright piano, the room was very cozy and open to employees after their shift. Here we were able to get a few stories from Sean, the head bottler, who has been with the company for a long time. Stephanie poured us a final beer for the walk, and we went downstairs to tour the brewery. Lagunitas brews in 80 barrel batches (a barrel is equal to 15.5 gallons). This was an interesting contrast to Moylan's, which only brews 20 bbl. batches. The size of the operation was noticeably different, from the size of the brew kettles and fermenters to the bottling operation. The entire staff was very friendly, and if we had a question Stephanie couldn't answer, she'd pull over one of the brewers who would discuss it more in depth with us.

When the hour was up, we went back to the office and loaded up on souvenirs. It could've been the beer, but I left feeling very satisfied, even with the high expectations that comes with a build up of several years. We gave our thanks, and headed back up 101 to Santa Rosa.

We headed to our camp spot, a city park on the outskirts of Santa Rosa. After setting up the tent, we packed a backpack and walked a mile to catch the city bus into downtown. Russian River Brewery has a brewpub in downtown Santa Rosa, and we were determined to have pints of the Pliny the Elder that we brewed a homebrew version of months earlier. We started with a sampler, that included all of their currently available beers. It was almost a 50/50 split of American style and Belgian style ales. We did find a few beers that we liked from the sampler, but clearly the Pliny was our favorite. Russian River did have some great pizza as well. I have to thank them for our new favorite combination - pepperoni, pineapple and jalapenos (The jalapenos here were the spiciest I've had in a long time).

I have to say that Russian River didn't leave a great first impression. While we certainly enjoy the beer, the location of the pub catered more to a college age "meat-market" lifestyle. It seemed like all around us were young adults either on dates or their with their friends to try and meet others. The real downer is that they would not fill the growler we had brought with us, they required we bought one from them. Since they had already rung up beer, food and t-shirts, we figured we'd find some beer of theirs to take home from a grocery store instead (we never did). Besides, we'd need a few extra dollars to give the cabbie since he took us the long way back to camp - asshole.

Day 7
After clearing the cobwebs, we arose and got the hell out of Santa Rosa. A quick stop at a wifi cafe was needed; both for coffee and so I could fulfill my unemployment requirements. Another familiar brewery was nearby, in Healdsburg just 20 miles north.


Bear Republic was what we had hoped last nights experience would have been. The staff was friendly, and the patrons were even friendlier. We ordered a sampler tray of 15 2oz tastes of their current brews. While we tasted some fantastic ales, we talked it up with a couple of locals. Bear Republic brews on the spot here (mostly their specialty beers) and at their brand new brewery further up the road in Cloverdale. They also had no problems with filling up our growler from home, so we made sure to take some of their fine ale with us.

We pushed on north, now eager to be in the Redwoods. It was really nice not to have to be in a rush, and we were able to take the scenic routes through the forests instead of staying on the main highway. These giant trees were unbelievable, and staggering at times to stand next to. We camped at Humbolt-Redwoods State Park with giant Redwoods in our campsite. On one of these trees was the remains of an insect. All that remained of what I think was a bee was it's exoskeleton, and I grabbed this cool picture of it.



More to come!

Back to posting

Been away for a little while, sorry about that. I've been thinking a lot about the blog, just not posting. I feel as if I've almost been hyping up each entry in my mind before it gets written, instead of just sitting down and sharing the recent news. I'm going to try this more personal approach and see if it can't lead to some more content.

First, an update on the brewing since early March. We've brewed two beers, an ESB and an Imperial Pale Ale. The most fascinating thing to report about this is we used the same yeast for both beers. When shopping for ingredients for the ESB (Grand Teton Brewing Bitch Creek ESB clone) we decided to try a special yeast that had come in. This was the Pacman yeast, formulated by Wyeast specifically for Rogue. It was a mutation of the strain that was called for in the recipe, so it was only a slight change. Anyway, when racking this beer the following week, Kat used directions she found online to reuse the dormant yeast for our Imperial IPA (I'll post them when I can find them). I think it took a little longer for the yeast to take off than the full package, but once it got going it was aggressive. We racked it just a few days ago and it smells great. Looking forward to that one.

We've also finally sampled many of our batches. Here's a rundown of all the drinkable brews we have so far, and our thoughts.

• Brown Ale (Bob's Homebrew) - Full flavored malt with mellow hops. We couldn't believe how great this was for our first attempt, and neither could many of our friends. Supposedly dark maltier beers like this age better than the hoppier pale ales, so this could be really amazing later on.
• IPA 1 (Dogfish Head 60min clone) - This one took longer than we expected (although now feel that 4 weeks in a bottle is required), but was a great blend of hop character. We actually compared this to a bottle bought from the brewery. The flavors were very different, most likely due to the yeast in the recipe not available. But as stand alone beers, we both agreed we'd prefer to drink our homebrew over the actual beer. We'll probably try our version of the recipe again, with a few modifications.
• Red Ale 1 (Red Tail Ale clone) - This beer is disappointing and turned out pretty bland. It's a drinkable beer, just not very exciting, with no real noticeable hop or malt character. We wouldn't brew this recipe again.
• Pliny the Elder clone - Originally we titled this as a double IPA, but I don't really think that applies to this beer. This thing is a hop sledgehammer, as the aroma and bitterness clobbers you in the face. We've only tried it a couple of times, and saving the majority of this batch for next weekend, my birthday. It probably will have have mellowed just enough by then.
• Porter 1 (Avery New World Porter clone) - Our second dark beer turned out just as good as the first, and maybe better. This thing is fantastic, subtle hints of chocolate and a nice hop aroma. Very smooth and drinkable. We'll use this recipe as a framework for future porters I'm sure.
• IPA 2 (Lagunitas IPA clone) - We had high expectations for this beer and they have held up. This has a very nice flavor with a bite of hops at the aftertaste. We held the IPA challenge last night between this beer and our first IPA, and this one was decided the champ.

We've got the Rye bottled as well, but it won't be ready for another two weeks. The ESB will get bottled this weekend, and the Imperial was dry-hopped on Wednesday. We probably won't do much more homebrewing until I can get working again. Yeah, that's right, I am officially unemployed as of April 1st. At least I don't have to worry about buying beer. We do have a surplus of left-over ingredients, so there might be a brewday or two still left this spring.

I'd also like to mention an awesome rafting trip we went on last weekend. We joined our friends Paul and Matt down on the Wind River, near Carson, WA. This is a serious class IV+ run with long stretches of continuous whitewater and some BIG drops. Definitely the toughest paddling trip of the year. We had great runs both days. Saturday was cold with snow in the morning, but a dozen determined rafters still went down. Both boats flipped at the same place on the run, but fortunately after the toughest stretch and we recovered in a reasonable time. Sunday's weather was surprisingly nice with the sun following us almost the entire trip. I managed to get thrown from the raft, but nobody else did. You know, I should talk to Matt about that.

The only problem with the Wind River is the camping. In years past, we've always camped out right at the take-out, which is nothing more than a muddy parking lot. It's always wet and cold, not to mention the lack of decent tent sites. I told Kat a few weeks before the trip, "I really want to raft this river, but I am not camping in that spot." We decided to get a motel in Stevenson Saturday night, which really made all the difference for the weekend. Our friends that were staying overnight also decided to join us, and we had a hilarious night hanging out in town. One of our favorite small breweries, Walking Man Brewery is in Stevenson, so we sampled many of their beers, and tall pints of the Homo Erectus, their Imperial IPA (such a tasty brew). I splurged and picked up a T-shirt as well.

I'll post more, I swear. Cheers!

Racking and Bottling

Sorry for the delayed post this week. This is likely due to the fact that we did not brew over the weekend.

We did bottle our Pliny the Elder clone. This was a bit difficult with all the hops left in the carboy. It was a bit nerve-racking (pun intended) getting a solid stream flowing through the siphon since it was wrapped in pantyhose to help filter out the hop trub. We ended up aerating the beer quite a bit during the process which hopefully won't impact the flavor too much. Maybe next time we'll try using the pantyhose at the exit end of the tube to see if that manages to work any better (but honestly, it'll be quite some time before we make a beer with this amount of dry-hops).

Not much else to report, other than our brown ale really tastes fantastic. Looking forward to giving our first IPA a true taste test this weekend. Kat picked out an ESB recipe that looks mighty tasty, so that is most likely what we'll be brewing on Saturday.

Avery Porter Clone

Our repeat performance of the full array of brewing tasks went much smoother than last week. We managed to get bottling started at eleven in the morning and were able to finish brewing just after 6pm. With efficiency in mind, we were a bit excited and almost got ahead of ourselves by bottling before we added priming sugar. Fortunately, Kat realized this after we had capped only one bottle so we were able to correct the mistake painlessly. The good news was that we had a large sample of our IPA to taste. Although the beer was flat, it was actually very good: slightly bitter with a big aroma, and had a fantastic color and clarity. I think this beer will get us a lot of "you made this?" from friends since it's more of the style our friends prefer (and it's tasty)!

After bottling, we started on both of the next tasks - brewing our porter and racking the Pliny clone. Tackling both at the same time was a great use of time since there is always down time during brewing. Our Avery Porter clone started with just under 4 lbs. of malted grains for our pre-boil mash. The featured grains included carapils, chocolate malt, and black patent malt to give it a rich dark chocolate smell and look. While those were steeping, we started added hops to our carboy which will dry-hop our Pliny clone. If you look at the photo we took, that's six ounces of hops just for dry hop. For comparison, we haven't yet brewed a beer outside the Pliny that used six ounce total, let alone for dry-hopping. Tasting showed that the beer's bitterness had mellowed out considerably, and left behind a large hoppy aftertaste. We expect this to be a big beer that leaves a mouthful to "chew" on when it's complete in 3-4 weeks.

The porter brewing went off without a hitch. One difference from previous batches was we added half of our malt extract late in the boil for this recipe. Bob mentioned that this helps hop efficiency, which should bring out more of the bitterness from the Columbus hops. Fuggles were used for aroma and again in a week for dry-hop (dry-hopping is unconventional for a porter). These are very aromatic and have a nice fruity and earthy balance. The wort was cooled and we pitched our London Ale yeast at 70F. It's been fermenting nicely since Saturday night. Now we have to decide whether or not to brew again this weekend. Can you believe that I'm leaning towards the 'yes' side?

Pliny the Elder Clone

Busy busy brew day for us on Saturday. We knew it would be, as our first bottling attempt was this weekend as well as racking our Red Tail clone from the previous week. We really weren't sure what we were going to brew. We had talked about a few different possibilities during the week, but didn't really have a solid decision. I had found a clone recipe of Russian River's Pliny the Elder IPA which was getting rave reviews, but I knew would be expensive based on the amount of hops in the recipe. Less than an hour before leaving for the brewstore, I came to the conclusion that this was the beer I really wanted to brew, and Kat agreed.

Before we could start on this ale of epic hop proportions, space was needed in the fermenter and therefore beer had to be bottled and racked. Our original brown ale was looking fantastic - it had cleared up nicely and a solid layer of sediment was sitting on the bottom of the carboy. Cleaning and sanitizing the bottles was the real work here, especially without a dishwasher to sanitize. We were able to make the best with what we had. I found some unused organizing racks worked perfectly for drying the bottles after sanitizing. After the cleaning, we added the priming sugar and moved the beer to our bottling bucket. Then it was a fun and easy trade off, as Kat would fill up the bottles, and I'd add the cap. We ended up with 23 12oz. bottles and 12 22oz. bottles, just shy of our expected yield. We did take a taste of the beer, prior to carbonation and it was much better than expected. In 2-3 weeks time, we'll have a fantastic beer to share with our friends!

Our Red Tail was racked to a carboy, and we added an ounce of Cascade hops for dry-hop. The beer did still have a bit of a foamy head at top, which was a small concern. It had been bubbling away for the first few days and slowly tapered off just as our previous attempts so the other behavior was as expected. The sample tasted fairly balanced, but also a very mild flavor. Kat said that adding the dry-hop was "the best thing we could have done" to this beer, and I think she's right.

Brewing the Pliny Clone was a real treat to a couple of hop heads like Kat and I. Even Bob (of Bob's Homebrew Supplies) was impressed by the sheer amount of hops used in this recipe:

Pliny the Elder
1 lb 2-row malt
0.28 lbs crystal malt (40L)
0.86 lbs Carapils malt
1 lb dextrose
6.15 lbs light DME

1.5 oz Chinook hops (mash)
2.75 oz Warrior hops (90min)
0.5 oz Chinook hops (90min)
1 oz Simcoe hops (45min)
1 oz Columbus hops (30min)
2.25 oz Centennial hops (0min)
1 oz Simcoe hops (0min)

Wyeast 1056 American Ale

3 oz Columbus hops (dry-hop)
1.75 oz Centennial hops (dry-hop)
1.75 oz Simcoe hops (dry-hop)

Mash at 150-152F for 45min.

This was a noticeably different recipe from the start as we added and ounce and a half of hops just to the pre-boil mash. The other major difference was the addition of a pound of corn sugar to the boil. This will give lots of fuel for the yeast as it turns the sugars into alcohol and CO2. Let's get back to the hops though. In case you didn't do the math, there is over a full pound of hops in this recipe. This was our first chance to use many of the listed hop varieties for the first time. We both absolutely loved the Columbus hops which had a slight fruity aroma. The Chinook was a nice bittering hop as well, and came through strongly in the tasting. Our only issue during brewing was forgetting about adding Irish Moss, but we added a tsp. with about 10min left in the boil anyway. The airlock has been bubbling like crazy since Sunday morning, and we both know this beer will be tempting to taste as early as possible. We'll do our best to see how long we can hold out, it won't be ready for sure until the end of March and will certainly improve after additional weeks. Good thing we'll have 3 brews to tide us over until then.