Happy Monk Belgium Pale Ale

Most commonly found in the Flemish provinces of Antwerp and Brabant. Considered a “everyday” beer when compared to their higher alcohol cousins, they are Belgian “session beers” for ease of drinking. 

The Happy Monk is well carbonated, effervescent,  with a soft amber color and off white fluffy head.  One the first draw you’ll notice the clove nose followed by sweet malt.  The beer is of medium body, with a light floral hop finish some residual sweetness.  This highly drinkable  session beer goes well with light summer fare.

The Happy Monk malt bill uses traditional malts from Germany including Pilsner Malt, Munich Malt, Caravienne Malt, and a touch of biscuit malt.  For this version I choose a traditional Trappist Ale yeast fermented at a temperature to balance the spiciness of the yeast phenols, with the sweet malt, and Fuggles and Amarillo hops.

Vital Statistics:

OG: 1.049

FG: 1.008

IBU: 25

Calories: 162

ABV: 4.7%

Outsourced IPA

Outsourced IPA is a traditional English India Pale Ale in the Burton on the Trent style.  Water from the Trent River is known for its high mineral content which served to accentuate the hop characteristics of Pale Ales in that time.  In the mid to late 18^th century Burton brewers succeeded in replicating the pale ale produced in London, the advantage of the water’s qualities allowed the development of the trade of Burton India Pale Ale (an ale specially brewed to keep during the long sea voyage to India).  Today the breweries of Burton (including Bass) are mainly owned by the large conglomerates on InBev and Molson Coors,  however several microbreweries remain.

Mill Road Craft Brewing, and its Outsourced IPA, pays tribute to the traditional breweries on the Trent with its version of the standard English India Pale Ale.  Outsourced IPA is a medium body ale with an off-white, creamy, tan head with a moderate lasting lace.  The Ale is cloudy from the dry hop addition of English Willamette hops.  Upon tasting you can notice the mineral additions that simulate the hard water of the Trent river.  These additions helps to accent the hops and lend a somewhat metallic or mineral like flavor.  Use your senses to experience the dry hop nose with caramel and toast hints up front, with a hint of raisin in the middle, dry and slightly bitter finish.

Vital Stats:

• 55 IBU’s
• OG 1.066, FG 1.016
• 6.1% ABV
• 223 calories

Custom Fermentation Chamber

After searching for the perfect freezer to convert to a fermentation chamber, I decided to build my own, to my specifications. My requirements are simple

1) Allow for fermenting and conditioning of Ales and Lagers
2) Have two temperature zones, independently controlled
3) Hold 2 - 15 gallon Sabco Fermenters, and 4 - 5 gallon cornies.


The result is a 6 foot tall, by 2 foor square chamber. I framed it with 1.5 inch slotted steel, using 1/2 plywood panels. FInally, it will be lined with rigid foam insulation.

For cooling I purchased the smallest window A/C unit I could find, a 4500 BTU Frigidaire for $99 from Lowe's. Using a standard window A/C unit required me to hot wire the unit to bypass the temperature sensor in order to get a temp down to 50F. The unit is mounted above the chambers and blows down into the unit. The coldest section is the middle chamber, the warmer being on the bottom.

I can control the lower temperature by two means, one is to restrict the downward the cool air flow, and the other is to heat the chamber or single fermenter using the second Love Controller. The picture to the right, is the first test. Power for the entire unit is controlled via the center switch.

Key Parts:
(2) Dywer Instruments TS2-010 with a TS-21 Probe
(1) Frigidaire A/C unit at Lowes
(8) 6 foot by 1.25 Slotted Steel
(6) 2 foot by 4 foot 1/2 inch sanded plywood panels
(4) 6 foot #1 Pine 1 by 4s
(2) 18 by 28 Plexiglass panels for the door
Lots of assorted screws, washers, wiring, wire screws

A finished photo is below. the rough dimensions are 76 * 24 *24 and can hold 4 cornies below in the Ale chamber and 4 cornies or 2 15 gallon Sabco Fermenters in the upper lager chamber.

MRCB Base Recipes

It’s been a few weeks and I’ve realized that I haven’t updated the blog. I’ve slowed down the business planning for now and have switched over to perfecting my recipes. I have close to 30 different recipes that I’ve brewed in the past 18 months. Some of those have turned out pretty good, and others not so good and some I can’t brew enough of as my friends quickly drink it and want more. I’ve come up a list of core offerings and now I want to refine and perfect them.

• Irish Red Ale, this will be my flagship beer. I can’t brew enough of it.
• California Common Ale
• Belgium Wit Ale or American Wheat Ale; I can’t decide which one yet.
• Bohemian Pilsner
• Raspberry Kolsch
• American Stout
• English IPA
• American Imperial IPA
• American Stout

Since early January I have been able to brew a 5 gallon batch of the first 4 listed above. For the Red Ale and Common Ale, I’ve split the batches into two and used different yeasts to better compare the flavor and what each accentuates. Yeast planning is also important in regards to cost. In a small nano, yeast gets to be very expensive if you don’t repitch / reuse yeast. Since you can’t let cropped yeast sit indefinitely, its best to decide upon a core set of yeast and plan accordingly. You can see some of the results of the yeast trails in an earlier blog entry.

To help get the word out, I’m brewing the Pilsner and another batch of Red Ale for our neighborhood picnic of close to 100 households, brewing for our summer community center pool party, and scheduling a tasting in the late spring and my annual, but larger, Oktoberfest later this year.

First steps on a long Journey

The month of January brought a significant milestone for me.  Mill Road Craft Brewing is now a licensed LLC in the state of Virginia.  Virginia actually makes this step pretty easy and its all on-line at the State Corporation website.  For $100 you can apply for licensing and get your Articles of Organization and LLC Certificate at the end of the process. As of January 10, 2012, Mill Road Craft Brewing LLC is official.

Since I was on a roll, I went to the Department of Treasury website (located here) to file for by EIN online; a few clicks and minutes later I had an EIN and now can pay taxes (YIPEEE) and open a small business bank account.

So now Mill Road Craft Brewing (MRCB) has a domain name, facebook presence, drink coasters (from Canada Coaster), Articles of Organization, EIN, and Bank Account.  In the next couple months I will be ordering new brewing equipment for my pilot system, updating my fermentation chamber and start brewing and giving away some beer to build up the buzz.

In the meantime I continue to Home Brew, share with my friends, and submit my favorites to competitions all across the US.  I've had a few judging successes and am learning from the feedback.  I'd also like to thank the many home and nano-brewers across the country that have shared information through boards, blogs, and websites, especially Hess Brewing.

Our first draft of bottle labels

This is the first cut at a set of labels for our core set of beer offerings

Starting a nano-brewery. It’s a lot of work.

One thing for sure, brewing beer may be the easiest part (and the most fun). There is a lot that goes into starting a brewery, in fact part of it is determining if its even feasible for you to start one. In my case I’ve started a feasibility study; call it a pre-business plan. A good study will provide you with that gut check so you can evaluate a decision to move ahead or not.

I’ve spent about 6-8 weeks on my study so far and I have looked at many topics which I will enumerate below. I’ve gone down a few rabbit holes (too much detail in some cases), but my study is a reflection of me, I like to know the details and be as informed as possible before making a decision such as this. Even with all the numbers and information there are some questions that you have to answer for yourself.
1) How will this impact my family?
2) How will this impact my current job?
3) Do I have the time and capital to invest in this?
4) Can I afford to operate at a loss for an extended period of time?
5) How much money can I pump into this to make it successful?
6) Do I need partners to help with this?

So what is in my study….. here is my list
1) Mission statement, vision, goals, and objectives
2) Legal Structure (Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, LLC, etc)
3) Legal requirements at the federal, state, and local level
4) Zoning and permit requirements
5) ABC licensing
6) Brewing

• a. Hardware and sizing (how many bbls, number of fermenters required, etc)
• b. Gas, electric, steam, RIMS, HERMS
• c. Cooling and Filtering
• d. Keg options and requirements (rent or buy)

7) Product mix and pricing
8) Cost and Revenue estimation and break even analysis
9) Distribution
10) Promotion and Brand
11) Suppliers
12) Trademarks
13) Packaging
14) Financing and Fundraising

Perhaps this is too much detail, but its helped me to understand the complexity of starting a brewery and how to make decisions and the impact of one decision upon another. Much of this information will serve as input into a longer range business plan. In my case phase 1 is the nano, phase 2 is a much larger 30-30 bbl capacity system. This is likely enough of a post for today, going forward I'll dig into some of these aspects in more detail along with my successes, pains, and learnings,

Experiments in Yeast - last update

This past week I brewed up a batch of Sam’s Red Ale, an Irish Red ale, and a batch of Uncommon Ale, a California Steam ale. In both instances I split the batches into half and used style specific yeast in one fermenter and a standard yeast in another. Very early on there were noticeable differences. Here are the specifics;

Batch 1: Uncommon Ale
Brew Date: 12/27/2011
OG into primary: 1.052
Strike Temp: 69.5f
Ferm temp: 67.5f plus/minus 1.5f
Volume: 2.5 gallons into each fermenter
Fermenter 1: Fermentis US-05 America Ale Dry Yeast; FG 1.012
Fermenter 2: White Labs WLP051 California Ale V, FG 1.015

Results: US-05 started fermentation sooner (4 hours versus 7 hours) and was consistently more vigorous through out the first several days and completed fermentation sooner. Upon racking to secondary the US-05 SG was 1.012 and had less esters, but was noticeable cloudy (lower flocculation than the WLP051). Conversely WLP051 was much more clear (very clear in fact) and reached a SG of 1.016 which aligns with its documented attenuation range. I did notice more sulfur like odors from the WLP051 batch. Tasting results will be posted at 4 weeks and final results at 6 weeks.

Batch 2: Sam’s Red Ale
Brew Date: 12/30/2011
OG into primary: 1.054
Strike Temp: 70f
Ferm temp: 67.5f plus/minus 1.5f
Volume: 2.5 gallons into each fermenter
Fermenter 1: Danstar Nottingham Dry Yeast (re-pitched first generation) FG 1.017
Fermenter 2: Wyeast 1046 Irish Ale FG 1.015

Initial Results: Wyeast started fermentation sooner (6 hours versus 18 hours) and was consistently more vigorous through out the first several days. The Wyeast batch completed active fermentation on 1/3/12 as was moved to secondary at a SG of 1.016; estimated FG is 1.013. Danstar batch still showing some activity in the ferm lock. Additional results will be posted at transfer to secondary and 4 weeks and final results at 6 weeks.

Update 1/9/11:  Bottled uncommon ale.    US05 1.012, Cali V 1.015.   Both were very clear.  Cali slightly more clear.  The lower attenuation gave more malt flavor leaving the malt and caramel notes that US05 mostly wiped out.  US 05 with the higher attenuation really accentuated the hops with a bit of warmth. Cali V has more balance also noticed it was more carbonated out of the fermenter

Update 1/23/11: Bottled Irish Ale last week and took final readings.  The Wyeast Irish Ale finished at 1.015, 2 points more than the Nottingham.  The Wyeast was less clear than Nottinghan and more grainy with less malt flavor.  Medium-light body feel and a bit dryer.  Nottingham at 1.017 was more clear, balanced, little hop bitterness or dryness.  Medium body feel.  While there was a difference in clarity, it was barely noticable.

Below are side by side images of the two versions on Uncommon Ale.  For my purposes I prefer the WLP051 and Nottingham varieties.  I can see the US-05 used for American Pale Ale where a higher attenuation is preferred

WLP051 - US-05

 

Stage 2: Out of the house and into all grain

Moving into the garage and outdoors allowed me to meet my next two goals, all grain brewing and full wort boils. While I had some decent beer made indoors, it was just a stepping stone. As I got further into the art of brewing I found myself scanning the net reading blogs, forums, and taking in the advice and experience of the collective community of home brewers. I wanted to be a part of it. First thing was I needed a “brewing sculpture”. At this point I didn’t have much of an idea exactly what that would cost. I quickly learned that what I wanted, I couldn’t afford; so I decided to build it myself. I knew that I wanted a system that was all on one level and employed a recirculation method. By recirculating my wort I could use the grain bed as a filter to get the cleanest possible wort. This also made it possible to add a RIMS unit if necessary. I decided to utilize two 10 gallon Rubbermaid water coolers as my Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) and Mash Lauter Tun (MLT). Coupled with a new 10 gallon Polarware brew kettle, 100,000 BTU banjo burner, and March pump I found on Craig’s list I had the beginnings of my system.

After much consideration and shopping around I decided to build a wooden brewing platform on casters. The platform surfaces are made of a butcher block type surface with a Plexiglas overlayment on every surface except for under the brew kettle. Under the brew kettle I used a single section of 18*18 ceramic floor tile. All of the wooden frame and surfaces have multiple coats of Minwax Stain with Polyethylene to seal the surface. To date this has provided a durable and easy to clean platform. Approximate cost for the platform, $300, mostly from Lowes.

The picture above is the rough frame version 0.9

To the right is the final system ( version 1) fully involved. You can see the wort from a Pilsner I am brewing recirculating. Version 2 that went into production in December 2011 added a plate chiller and additional plumbing and valves to eliminate disconnects/moving lines and to create a clean (no drip / spill) brewing day. If you look closely you'll also see a dimmer switch used to control the motor speed. Both the MLT and HLT have temperature gauges placed just above the spigot valves. I found that with this configuration I would lose only 1-2 degrees of heat over one hour without recirculating and 2-3 degrees with recirculation. I usually run the recirculation for only the final 10-15 minutes of mashing and also as part of the sparging processes; thus I have not added a RIMS unit to my stand.

This is also the time I moved to using software to design my recipes. I chose BeerTools Pro 2.0. My first brews focused on full wort boils using partial mash techniques. After a few of these, and a Gold Medal in the Dominion Cup for my Oktoberfest 2010 with an average score of 45, it was time to move to all grain brewing. I decided to go to all grain for a few key reasons, one I felt that using Malt Extract was cheating as the brewer gets to skip the wort creation process. Secondly, I wanted full control over my ingredients and flavor profile. Finally, malt extract is more expensive than grain.

As I started working with all-grain I ordered my grains crushed by the supplier; usually Midwest Supplies or Northern Brewer. I found that sometimes they would miss performing the crush or crush inconsistently and I would get either powder or barely cracked grains. Both caused brew day issues and clogged false bottoms. What did I learn? First get a grain mill and crush your own, second always check your order upon receipt, not on brew day, and third I modified my false bottom and haven't had a problem sense. I'll show that trick later.

Into 2011 I completed version 2 of my brewing platform and moved to BeerSmith 1.x. I have since upgraded to version 2.0 and I love it. As mentioned previously Brewstand 2.0 incorporated the grain mill, additional plumbing, and a chill plate in place of the immersion chiller. This past year I've brewed over 20, 5 gallon batches of beer with this configuration and get pretty good efficiency out of it (70+%), great results including a silver medal in the AHA regional competitions for my Irish Ale

Finished System below:

Stage 1: Mr. Beer

The fascination with beer grew into the next stage; how do they do that? I started Christmas 2008; Santa brought me a Mr. Beer. That’s right, beer in a box with a 2 1/2 gallon beer barrel shaped container and cans of malt extract. I jumped right in and I learned my first lesson. Good beer takes time. By nature I am not patient, I didn’t like that the wort and hops I boiled had to ferment for 1-2 weeks then condition 2-4 weeks more. I had to learn patience; ugh! After about three months I tried my own recipe, a raspberry blonde. Wow it turned out great, pretty cool. From there I started buying hops, then it went to steeping grains with Mr Beer extracts. Finally I said good bye to Mr Beer and hello to extract brewing. Still working from the kitchen, the wife was getting tired of the mess and the smell. It was time to start looking for somewhere else to brew.

Principle #1, at Mill Road Craft Brewing, all beer will be aged a minimum of 6 weeks. Up next.. To the Garage and All Grain Brewing.

Why Beer? Why Brewing?

Over the years I’ve come to realize that I have a passion for science, design and expressing that in a creative way. That may explain why my chosen career has been in the field of technology and architecture. Brewing beer or architecting technology solutions both require technical skill blended with creative expression. With brewing, the intersection of skillful design and creativity results in a well crafted beer that has an inner beauty, it’s simple in design, its elegant, balanced, and satisfies a desire; it can stand the test of time. That’s what Mill Road Craft Brewing is all about; finely crafted beers, not the latest trend or extreme beer, which are based upon the fusion of classic styles and inner creativity.

The journey begins:
Charting my own course and being my own boss has lurked in the back of my head for many years. However, starting and running a brewery is a fairly recent development over the past three years. I’ve always been a curious person and I love to know how things work, and that’s how it started with beer and brewing. A few visits to Capital Ale House got me asking these questions; why are there so many different beers on this menu? What’s the difference between them, and can I possibly drink them all? I can say with 100% surety that I have the answers and no, I can not drink them all; believe I have and continue to try. This leads to the next logical step, brewing it myself… how hard can it be right?