That being said, I have some fun things coming up soon that I wanted to let everyone know about:

• 2 big homebrew projects: Burton Union System and Real Ale System
• Beer Blogger’s Conference 10: Yep, I will be heading to BBC 10 in November. I hope to have a post previewing my trip and then be sure check out the blog and Twitter during the course of the weekend.
• Beer Reviews: New Glarus, Bells, and others getting reviewed

This post is pulling double duty tonight (makes sense since I’ve been so lax in updating recently). First, I get to review something from my recent trip to New Glarus Brewery and second, conquer my fear of sour beers. The beer challenged with the task?

New Glarus Enigma from their Unplugged series.

A few weeks back a question was possed on Twitter, “What beers do you fear?” My answer was simple, sour beers. Sours have always been a fear for me. The whole concept just eluded me. After some good natured ribbing regarding my fear of sours, I made the decision to conquer my fear and try a sour beer.

My opportunity came a few days later when I went up to New Glarus Brewery with my parents for the weekend. At the end of the New Glarus Brewery’s “Hard Hat Tour” (highly recommended) was a tasting of their beers, including Enigma. It was time to face my fear and go for it. In the end it was not at all what I expected and I enjoyed it, which brings us to today. On to the review!

New Glarus Enigma

Apperance: Nice clear copper red color, quick falling tan head.

Aroma: First sniff is full of bourbon, vanilla, and oak. Eventually, an interesting interplay of sweet and sour. I definitely pick up from the aroma the sourness of the beer, but I also pick up notes of rich fruity sweetness.

Flavor: Acidity and sour are the main flavors that I pick up mainly in the form of tart lemon. Suprisingly, there is also a malty softness and sweetness that balances the acidity quite well. As for those aromas of bourbon, vanilla, and oak? They definitely are present in the flavor as well. Carbonation is light, yet prickly if that makes sense.

Overall: As a relatively new comer to sour beers, I must say this is a really nice beer. Once I was able to overcome my fear of sour beers and really dig into the beer I found a really flavorful, refreshing beer. 9/10

The toast started as joke between fellow beer blogger Beerforthedaddy (@beerforthedaddy) and myself that we should have a toast to commiserate our lack of GABF attendance. Well one thing led to another and the next thing we know the idea had taken off with more and more people wanting to join. In the end we decided to toast not once, but twice during the event.

So if your not going to GABF and want to join us here are the details:

When:
Thursday Sept. 16th at 6:30 PM CST
Saturday Sept. 18th at 7:30 PM CST

To join just check in on Twitter with the beer you are toasting with and the hashtags #noGABF4us and #tearsinourbeerstoast. Pretty easy huh?

Cheers!

Ryan

Time for another review and this one coming from across the pond. Hobgoblin is an English Dark Ale, though in truth I’ve never really heard of the style before so I did not really know what to expect. Fortunately for me, my copy of “The Real Ale Almanac” by Roger Protz had come a few days earlier. According to the almanac Hobgoblin is brewed with just Maris Otter and Black malt with traditional English hop varieties for bitterness and aroma.

From the pour a nice light tan head forms. Though the picture doesn’t show it well, this beer is not black in color, but rather a dark amber with red hues in it. Neither is it particularly clear, but I have never been a stickler for clarity.

The first sniff I get of the aroma really took me back to my time in England. I can’t describe the aroma in words to convey the what I felt, only that the aroma was similar to many of the bitters I had over there. Grainy, a little earthy, with a touch of fruity is the best I can come up with.

I drank this beer fairly slow and in doing that was able to pick up different notes at different times. The initial flavors were focused around a soft caramel like sweetness balanced with a nice earthy bitterness. There was also a touch of roast from the black malt that was barely noticable. One flavor that I picked up halfway through drinking was a sweet dark fruity flavor. The flavors definitely intensified as the beer warmed up and flattened out a bit.

Overall, a pleasant beer. Reminds me a lot of the Bitters I’ve had, which is not bad thing, but as a dark ale I kinda expected it to be a little different. Would I drink it again? Without a doubt. 7/10

Cheers!

• Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast – Imperial Oatmeal Coffee Stout. Absolutely delicious. Most beers that profile a side flavor, in this case coffee, tend to over do it. This is seen a lot with bourbon stouts in my opinion, but in this case the coffee blends well with the stouts.
• Breckenridge Imperial Porter – Tasty big porter.
• Southern Tier Hoppe – Good beer, though for as few ingredients that were in the beer the individual characteristics seemed muted and lost. That being said, it was a good beer.
• Founders Red Rye Stout – If I see a rye beer I just can’t pass it up. Add to that it comes from Founders Brewery and I knew that I needed a sixer of this. I was not let down and this is a delicious beer
• Troegs Hop Back Amber – Got this along with the next one down in a trade and boy am I glad I did. Very pleasant beer with a great hop aroma, but a restrained bitterness making a perfect late summer beer.
• Weyerbacher Old Heathen – Imperial Stouts are my favorite of the “Big” beer styles and this one was on par with some of the better ones that I have had. Was it great? Probably not, but that does not mean it wasn’t tasty.

A couple that fell short:

• Big Sky Moose Drool – This doesn’t fall into this section because it was a bad beer, just over-hyped. It is a good Brown Ale, but given the following that this beer has across the country I was expecting a bit more.
• Argus Red Ale – This one was highly recommended by a couple people in the area and I was horribly disappointed. No red color and the beers flavor was lifeless. I will try again with a different offering from Argus, but this one was just not enjoyable.

Cheers!

What is in a name?

I would be lying if I didn’t say that the name partly derived from my love of wolves and dogs in general, but name goes further than that. The name is a throw back to etymology and naming of English Pubs after heraldic symbols. The wolf signifying perseverance or hard work and the color silver signifying respect, both of which are attributes that I strive for and put into every batch I brew. The other major factor behind the name is that I view beer and drinking to be much more enjoyable done in the company of friends, much like wolves in a pack.

Up Next:

-My next big project is the website, which I hope to have up in the next few weeks.

-Brewing various batches to refine our initial line of beers.

-Throughout the week I will be posting other glimpses into the breingw philosphy, brewer(me), the initial beers, and more.

Cheers!

Ryan

I must also give a huge thank you to Josh at Brew Brand Creative for all the work that he did on this logo and putting up with me through this process and with that here is the logo for Silver Wolf Brewing Co.

I will have a post up sometime this weekend with more information regarding this venture and what you can expect from me and the brewery going forward.

Cheers!

Recently I picked up Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. Before I get any further, if you homebrew and design your own recipes, you need to pick up this book. One of the fun parts of the book, is learning how styles have changed over time to what we know of today. Two of the fun styles that I read about were Burton Ales and Brown Porters, thus leading to todays Burton Ale Brewday.

Today was also the day that I got to use my birthday presents for the first time. Those presents being a malt mill, refractometer, and a false bottom for my mash tun. Overall, all of them worked flawlessly, but none so much as the refractometer. So much easier than taking hydrometer samples and without the waste either. Anyway on to the brewday.

The recipe for this was pretty simple:
90% Maris Otter
10% British Medium Crystal (50-60L)
OG: 1.085
Hopped with
Galena(60 min – 71 IBU)
First Gold (15 min – 18 IBU)
Challenger (5 min – 6 IBU)
Fermented with Wyeast Thames Valley

I plan on dry hopping with First Gold and Challenger as well.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Kinda forgot about that today.

Cheers!

I would not classify myself as a hop head, but I do enjoy a good IPA every so often. Two Brothers, out of Warrenville, IL, brews some of my favorite hoppy beers in Cane and Ebel and Heavy Handed, so when I found Hop juice I knew I had to pick up a bottle.

Hop Juice was one of the 2009 Artisan releases and coming in at 9.9% ABV with 100.1 IBUs, this IIPA certianly lives up to its name. It pours a golden amber color with a fairly thick off white head. The aroma is a nice balance of citrus and pine hops, though the aroma was much softer than I expected.

After taking the first sip, what hits me is the balance of the beer. The hops and the sweetness of the malt are perfectly in sync giving this beer a pleasant flavor. The malt provides a caramel sweetness to the beer that proves an excellent counter point to the hop bitterness and let’s face it, the bitterness and flavor from the hops are what we are here for. Hop Juice does not disappoint in that regard. The citrus and pine aroma from earlier show up in full force on the palate providing a firm bitterness and tons of flavor.

Overall, 9/10.

Though I havn’t been around much, I have been brewing quite often as well has having my daily pint of craft beer (or two on some days). Right now I have a nice Impy Stout aging, English Summer Ale ready to keg, an Amber Ale carbing up, and a Burton Ale planned for tommorow.

The biggest news though is my decision to take the leap into the ranks of professional brewers in the next year. I have started the planning and development of a nanobrewery that, I hope, will start selling late summer or early fall of next year. Stay tuned for more information.

Tonight for your reading pleasure and to kick of my return, I will be reviewing the special release from Two Brothers Brewery, Hop Juice. A Double India Pale Ale that cracks the triple digit IBU threshold.

Prost!