Fire Dancers, Hot Cake House, and Peach Jalapeno Wine

I am sometimes at a loss for words to explain the way that crafting beer and wine make me feel. It's not just a hobby, it's a calling, in the sense that we all have something which turns the light on in there heads and hearts through which we channel feelings and thoughts. If nothing else I've learned that ignoring the demands of tending to my beer has often had detrimental effects on my state of mind. I can always depend on having a clear head after I've worked with my wines or worked on some beer recipe I want to try. When I lived in Minneapolis my kitchen was a closeted rainbow factory, with all my beer and wines in cupboards or under blankets. When I brought them out on bright days the sun shining on them made my kitchen light up and spirit even more so. I think that's what so heartbreaking about not really having a place to live that's my own space is that I feel like my happiness is confined to a dark cupboard but with no chance to come out and shine. It's hard to remain cheerful and even harder to be motivated to create.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I dream. I dreamed last night about a wine made of peaches and jalapenos. I know from experience that if I didn't write it out and try to figure the proportions I would continue to dream about it in some way or another this wine would haunt even my waking hours.

It began with Beer and Boobies night with friends with whom I usually do happy hours with on Fridays. I posted that I was looking for a ride to the festivities and the person who would usually let me tag along with them couldn't, so I had originally planned to just go to the one stripclub and head home after. Then I got an email from a friend that he was going because he didn't have to work and he would be willing to drive and even pick me up.

So the first place we met up at was our standby Union Jacks but it was really slow, even the dancers looked a little bored. After an hour we left and went to Devil's Point because rumor had it there was a fire dancer there...and there was. She was no joke, really impressive.

There is a point to this story, the wine comes in soon I promise.

So at around 11:00pm there was only 3 of us. Well chris called it a night and left but to be honest I was having such a good time talking with my driving buddy that we decided to not call it a night. Instead we went for breakfast at the Hot Cake House on Powell. We must have talked non-stop for over and hour about lots of weird things about the world and ourselves. Well it turns out he doesn't really drink a lot and doesn't really like beer. I know I should have just walked away from such blasphemy but I was seriously intrigued by the notion of not liking beer. He was quick to point out that he liked Framboise, which is a beer. He's a fan of Mike's hard lemonades. He mentioned that he liked the peach margarita, which I do as well and I mentioned that I had once made a jalepeno wine.

I got home around 1:30am and fell asleep a couple hours later. I dreamt about peaches and jalapenos last night and woke up thinking about them. I spent a couple hours looking through my wine forum to get insights on making wines from peppers and fruit together. I imagine something light and a little on the sweet side with a bit of jalapeno undertone and spiciness. I don't want the heat so much, though if it was a darker wine and had the right balance of sweet and tart that might carry the heat a little better than a light wine.

Anyway to make a long story a little longer I mapped out a tentative peach jalapeno recipe and think I'll get started on that sometime this fall.

Summer Gose Way Too Fast

Monday in mid-July has snuck up on me and I haven't even tasted a 1/4 of the beers I've wanted too. Sadly, during the hottest days of the summer I've experienced here in the last few years I was not drinking beer, mostly water to stay hydrated. Today the weather is overcast with decent unexpected sun breaks to remind us that it is still summer, but a whole lot cooler than last week.

I'm sitting in my favorite pub and in keeping with my usual luck the first beer I toss out to my favorite server, is out. She just hadn't had a chance to cross it off the beer list, the Ninkasi Radiant which is their summer ale. I've never been disappointed with Ninkasi and their Total Domination IPA is a crowd-pleasing standby I like to keep around the house. So no, Ninkasi for me today. Instead I pick the Cascade Gose. I needed a brief reminder on the description of the beer style. My mind remembered it was a wheat beer but the odd flavor characteristics I wasn't sure of. What stands out is the salty aftertaste. At first I thought it was just a bad food choice, because of my bad habit of choosing foods that don't sit well with the beers I am drinking. Today's choices were mac and cheese and plain chicken wings. I'm in a bland mood today.

I wanted salt in my mac and cheese not my beer but after a few sips of beer and bites of pasta I'm enjoying the beer more. The Gose is a beautiful golden color, cloudy (it's a wheat beer after all) with hardly any head, though there are constant streams of bubbles I can see. I can taste the sharpness of the coriander in the back of my mouth, and the saltiness is a little over powering. If I was eating some thing that didn't actually need salt, I don't think I would like this beer, but because most of the food I'm eating is in desperate need of salt I'm ok with this. This beer actually makes the cheese taste creamier. It's not a favorite. I think I would need to be considerably more desperate from the heat and activity on a summer's day to order this again. I can see it's appeal as a refreshing beer and one that many would find tasty. Just not me and not today.

It's off my beer bucket list so I feel proud of myself with that one. Nice spur to get me thinking about my next brew day though. The plan is to make the braggot this month and the brown ale next month and somewhere in there get a couple gallons of apfelwein made and maybe one made from a seasonal fruit.

Taste of Bliss

I have to pat myself on the back for this one. I finally got the beer cooled down enough to pour a glass. The last few days have been super hot and I have to admit I was hoping that the beer would be slightly less than stellar so I wouldn't have to share it. Unfortunately, this beer was as much a winner as the first one, so I guess I'll have to give it up.

The high points of this beer is the how the hop favor comes through. Initial taste has some hoppiness but the overall sweetness of the malt and caramel taste are really more forward. Midway through is when the hops come in and it's definitely a "WOW" I can taste them. What I like about this is that the hop flavor lingers long after you've swallowed and it's not the bitter aftertaste though there is quite a lot of bitterness. Aroma is the other aspect of this beer that I like. The aroma lasts throughout most of the drinking and becomes more fragrant as the beer gets warmer. Flaws for this beer is that it's really cloudy w lots of yeast in suspension. I'm hoping that as it ages it will clear up, because that is what happened with the amber. I think there's more flaws but I don't know what they are. I'll have to have someone with more experience tasting beers give me their opinion.

My recipe for braggot is on hold until next month but I like the recipe I have for it.

With everything going on in this world: The execution of an unarmed black man and the officer getting off with a measly manslaughter charge in LA. It seems silly to be focused on beer, but honestly, the other doesn't surprise me. The unfairness and cruelty acted on people of color by whites in power doesn't surprise me. That's just another day in the life. But something I can effect, my beer, well that keeps me sane.

Wedded Bliss 2010 IPA

I just popped the IPA that I had carbonating for two weeks into the fridge to get cold. I did a quick test to see how it would pour and it had a nice bit of foam which makes me think that I was successful in carbonating it the old-fashioned way. I need a new hose faucet, especially when I have more than one keg that's filled. Soon I'll have two kegs occupied.

I think I'm going to try using kegs for long term storage instead of carboy secondaries. They block out light, I fill it with CO2 to push out the air and fill it and then top it off with CO2 and that keeps it from oxidizing. They don't break. They're smaller and easier to store. All of these are good reasons for using kegs for my long term beer and braggot storage and aging.

I'm expecting my new burner in the next couple of days, so I can start the braggot when the weather cools down. At least I'll have that going and in a keg and out of my way until the fall. I do want another beer on tap for drinking after this Amber that's in the keg is gone. The keg is feeling pretty light, so it should be soon.

Suddenly everything just spiraled out of control

The last two weeks have been filled with activities and news. I'll briefly mention the big one hitting the homebrewing community of Oregon and that is the reinterpretation of the ORS 471.403, which states:

"No person shall brew, ferment, distill, blend or rectify any alcoholic liquor unless licensed so to do by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. However, the Liquor Control Act does not apply to the making or keeping of naturally fermented wines and fruit juices or beer in the home, for home consumption and not for sale.”

This has ultimately meant that the homebrew and wine-making competitions have been cancelled because OLCC has interpreted that judges are considered "public" and removing alcohol from the home is illegal. Needless to say this has caused a flurry of worried emails, calls for civil disobedience, push to write our state representatives to put forward a new law to amend the current and, suggestions for circumventing the current law until a solution is reached. In the meantime brew clubs have said that members cannot bring their homebrew to meetings. All competitions have been canceled for the foreseeable future.

Personally, I think that this whole thing came down because someone kept asking the OLCC what if questions until finally the OLCC had to come down with a definitive answer, after 30 years. Just me speculating, not substantiated in any way. What has been really funny is reading the string of emails from the two camps: the let's make change in a way that works with the system, write your rep, be proactive in working with our government; and the camp that tosses out ideas to hold underground competitions, who to complain or blame, devising ways to have judging that involves way more effort than is reasonable to expect of anyone.

I'm hopeful that the next year will resolve this in time for me to be able to submit to competitions next year.