Winterfest Highlights!

Winterfest 2014 - Eric MeyerWhen’s the last time you remember holding your glass in the air and cheering with 5,000 other beer enthusiasts? Believe it or not, this post took me almost a week to create. There were so many people that worked their tail off to make Winterfest 2014 a success. A very special “Thank you” to the breweries that participated, the Brewers of Indiana Guild, Hoosier Beer Geek, and the 100+ volunteers that made this happen. The planning and execution of this beer festival were top notch. We had an awesome time pouring at Winterfest, and we also wanted to thank everyone that dropped by to say hello and sample our offerings.That said, this year’s Winterfest was HUGE. We loved the extra space that Champion Hall provided, however it was soon consumed by the 5,000 beer loving ticket holders. This was by far the largest beer tasting I’ve ever been to. Note to self: VIP tickets at Indiana beer tastings are becoming more and more validated 🙂 Eric Meyer has a fantastic photo album documenting the debauchery.  Either way, I wanted to take some time to share some of my favorite picks from this past weekend. Here it goes:

Upland+Logo_New+Horizontal+copyNL The Upland Sour Barrel Spin Game
Upland used a Twitter password to allow entry into this Wheel of Fortune! The wheel included Raspberry, Cherry, and Kiwi Lambic, and also the much coveted Sour Reserve 4.
Zwanzigz BrewingZwanzigZ Brewing Eisbock
This beer was fantastic! This style of beer is created by freezing bock beer and removing the ice. This method concentrates the flavor and abv. Great work and thanks for sharing!
Country Boy BrewingCountry Boy Brewing Chestnut Brown Ale
We were lucky enough to pour right next door to Country Boy Brewing. This beer really stood out for me. Very easy drinking and flavorful brown!
New Albanian BrewingNew Albanian Phoenix Kentucky Komon Ale
This beer was great! Kentucky Common beer has the unique history of being America’s first sour! Lactobacillus is used to create a twang sourness that complements the malt profile of this beer. New Albanian pulled this one of brilliantly.
Planetary Brewing Logo Planetary Fly Casual Brown Ale
This was my first Planetary beer, and I was pretty impressed. I’m a sucker for Brown Ales. I’m sure I’ll be enjoying more Planetary beers in the not so distant future.
Three-Floyds-Big-LogoThree Floyd’s War Mullet
I’m not sure how long this keg lasted, but my guess is it went quickly. War Mullet is, at the moment, a very rare Imperial IPA created by FFF.
Flat 12 Bierworks LogoReposado Du Flat Saison/Farmhouse Aged 6 months in Extra Anejo tequila barrels.
The evil geniuses at Flat 12 created a saison that they aged in anejo tequila barrels. Everyone was talking about it the first couple of hours at Winterfest. I did not get a chance to try it, but I thought it was worth a mention as it seemed very popular.
Power House BrewingPower House Barrel Aged Diesel Oil Stout
Diesel Oil Stout is a fantastic beer. Seeing a barrel aged version at Winterfest was a great comfort 🙂
Rhinegeist BreweryRhinegeist Uncle English Dark Mild
We’ve been drinking a lot of English Mild beer lately and this one stood out. Smooth, great malt profile, and highly sessionable.
bier breweryBier Brewery 1.21 Gigawatts Belgian Strong and Hator Dopplebock
Both these beers were served at Bier’s 3rd Anniversary Party this past year. I was glad to see they still had some left for Winterfest. Cheers if you had the opportunity to try these rare beers!
MONK_logoMONK Wookie Tears English Brown Ale
These guys were great neighbors to us, and you can bet I made sure to sample each one of their beers. Wookie Tears English Brown was one of those great beers!
Bloomington Hop JockeysBloomington Hop Jockeys Sour Collection
There is no doubt that the Hop Jockeys have skill when it comes to brewing, but sampling their sour beer has become something to look forward to at these events. Thanks for sharing Luke!

BIMP Pouring At Winterfest 2014!

Winterfest TicketsBeer Is My Passion will be participating at this year’s Brewers of Indiana Guild Winterfest (now officially sold out) at the Indiana State Fair on February 1st! What will we be doing you ask? Pouring delicious homebrew of course 🙂 We will be sharing the stage with MONK, The Ohio Valley Homebrewers Association, and The Bloomington Hop Jockeys. Expect great beer from your favorite local/national breweries, but make it a point to drop by and say hi  to your brewers next door! This year we’ll be sharing a Belgian Witbier with tangerine zest, chamomile flowers, and coriander; an English IPA (Sleepy Sailor if you’ve seen our recipe on our blog); a mulled cider (served hot for you firkin lovers wanting to warm up from the cold); and a jalapeno cider we got some cred from in the Indy Star this year. Stay tuned, as I’ll be updating my blog with a full list of brewers attending Winterfest sometime tomorrow.

Pear Cider in 5 Easy Steps!

Pear Cider - 01

Making pear cider is not as hard as it may sound. If you are comfortable brewing beer, you should have no problem making a good cider. As will all things fermented, remember that sanitation is key. I’ve compiled an easy step by step set of instructions for making cider from organic pear fruit juice. Here is a list of what you will need for a 5 gallon batch:

1 – 6.5 gallon carboy/food grade bucket w/ airlock or blowoff hose
1 – Small sanitized funnel
5 – Gallons of organic pear juice. (I’ve used R. W. Knudsen’s Organic Pear Juice)
1 – Package of yeast (I’ve used Wyeast Labs 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast)
1/2 – tsp of Yeast Nutrient
2 1/2 – tsp of Pectic Enzyme (Settles out free floating pectin in pasteurized juice, and will help you clarify improve your cider yield)
1/4 – tsp Potassium Metabisulphite (to kill of any wild yeast if using unpasteurized/ juice)
Brown sugar
1/2 tsp of Potassium Sorbate

Step 1: Make sure that your carboy/bucket is sanitized. I usually do a wash and scrub with unscented Oxyclean or PBW, a double water rinse, and then sanitize it with a no rinse acid based sanitizer like Star San. This step is very important because we will not be boiling the juice like we would wort in brewing beer. I activate my yeast packet in the morning and let it sit while I clean my equipment. Take your time! Give your yeast at least a few hours to reproduce before pitching it into your juice.

Pear Cider - 02

Step 2: Once your yeast is ready to go, portion out your ingredients and get them ready to go. Make sure that your measuring spoons are clean and sanitized as well. Start pouring your juice into the fermenter. I usually pour off half of the juice, and then add the yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme, potassium metabisulphite, and any additional sugar to the remaining juice in it’s container so I can shake them together. This allows the ingredients to dissolve into the juice before adding it to the fermenter. If you are using pasteurized juice (which most of you will likely be using for this recipe), it will be cloudy. The pectic enzyme will help break down the free floating pectin in your juice, which will remove the haze from your finished product. Another thing to note is that the Original Specific Gravity of your juice should be at around 1.050. If it is not, you can add 2.25 oz of brown sugar or 3 oz honey per gallon to raise the OSG by increments of .005. A solid 1.060 OSG will yield between 7 to 9% abv with cider/mead yeast.

Pear Cider - 03

Step 3: Once all of your juice has been added to the fermenter, immediately pitch your yeast and aerate your batch. Providing the yeast with plenty of oxygen will help promote healthy yeast cell walls, which in turn will allow your yeast to propagate through your juice quickly. This will reduce fermentation lag time, and decrease your chance of bacterial infection. As you can see from the picture, I inject oxygen using an oxygen regulator and difuser stone.

Step 4: Allow your cider to ferment for 7-10 days. Once fermentation has ceased you can cold crash your batch or move it to a secondary for clarification. I would suggest letting your cider at sit least a week to allow yeast and unfermentables to settle out. Store bought juice is pasteurized, which naturally creates a large amount of pectin in the juice. The pectic enzyme added in Step 2 is critical if you want clear, non-cloudy cider.

Step 5: Dissolve 1/4 tsp of Potassium Metabisulphite and a 1/2 tsp of Potassium Sorbate into your batch. This “shuts off” your yeast activity and allows you to back sweeten your cider (which will be dry and tart) with more juice, brown sugar, or honey to taste. From here you should keg.

We at BIMP have made some outstanding cider using this method. It works great with any organic juice you can buy at the store. Please post any comments or recipe suggestions below. Enjoy!

Making Hard Cider With Apple Juice

This is a step away from my usual posts, but I thought it would be a cool thing to try. EdWort of homebrewtalk.com posted a thread on making Apfelwein (German Hard Cider) from 100% preservative free apple juice, corn sugar, and wine yeast. The recipe is super simple, apparently tastes fantastic, and can be made in as little as 6 weeks. What’s the downside? Haha, from what I understand Apfelwein gives you a ridiculous hangover. In fact, there is even a disclaimer at the bottom of Edwort’s recipe. Either way, I’m super interested in creating some Apfelwein of my own.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La38oQjdyPw]

Here’s a video tutorial Craig Farraway of Craigtube has created that walks you through the process. If you’ve done this before, please share your results with us here or on our Facebook page. Prost!