Sunday, March 7, 2010

sleep and beer






So as i stated earlier i got sick last week. I should say that on wed i slept for 14 hours straight. I still have a cough but besides that i'm now good. The test on friday was mostly over bacteria, filtration, wild yeast. I did alright. this past friday was set up to be very book serious(best way i can put it). After the test we had one hour of lecture, then 2 hours of how to do a sampling session(including drinking said beers). After lunch we had a tasting of german style beers. And to top it all off we had a field trip to metropolitan brewery and a distillery next to it. The brewery is small about 1000 barrels a year at this point. But there is a lot of room to grow. 15 barrel brewhouse, 30 barrel fermentors. Really nice people and an interesting trekie themed bathroom. The distillery was cool but we could be loud, the owners baby was sleeping. After lots of beer we headed back to the hostel.... with a keg of bells amber. The reason we get kegs is because if we all got good beers out at bars we would spend way more than if we got a keg. It also allows us to be the party patrol at the hostel. if people are parting here, someone of us brewers is involved in it. It kicked around 3 am. Oh school...

hello???

Where have i been? Not updating this blog, thats for sure. Well here goes, The yeast quiz went well, not great but that was pretty much class wide. I ended up leaving an hour or 2 early after the test to catch an earlier train back to stl for the weekend. Lucky i did, there was a derailment and that added about 2 hours on my trip. When i got back i heard so interesting stories from the guys i'm staying at the hostel with. In short keg, hostel, 5am parties. This past week of school was supposed to be the second hardest week of the course. It was. On tuesday our little group ended up at a local bar for cheap burgers and beer. Well the vp of the school ended up coming along and buying for us. Great guy and not just for buying us beer and burgers. Not much happened the rest of the week until i got sick. But thats over. I'm also running low on beer in my closet. I'm down to about 1.5 cases, i might have to buy some soon.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Yeast!





Hello all, well they were right about this being a really hard week. It has been nothing like the first 2 weeks. A lot more to learn, a lot of stuff i don't know much or anything about. also terms i've never heard before this week and its only tuesday. I'm pretty much studying 3-4 hours every night right now. Here are the topics for this weeks lectures, Intro to microbiology, yeast morphology, brewing yeast characteristics, yeast nutrition, yeast metabolism, yeast cultures/propagation, yeast physical behavior, fermenting operations, yeast flavor compounds, yeast quality measurements, yeast-genetic characteristics, yeast handling/management, dried yeast products, yeast nutrients, genetic tech.:yeast identification, genetic tech.: detection of contaminants, and processing aids. So if you know that you a better man than i. The saving grace to the day was we did another styles tasting. This time it was American style beers. The pictures here are what we had. The teacher we have had all this week so far but left this afternoon was from Scotland. He has a few brewing degrees and a PhD in yeast physiology. The man knows more about yeast that i'd ever care to know. Alright enough time on here back to the books.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Mod 2




so heres what i've been up too. Fridays classes were kind of a big blur, mostly brewing calculations that we don't need to know and a section on testing beer with equipment that no small brewery could ever afford. The last section of class friday was sensory analysis of english, scotish and irish beers. That was a good way to finish classes on a friday. After more than a few beers at school i wound up at the maproom and had a couple nicer beers before i headed back to my hostel. Being in a hostel is ok except for when you get woken up at 2:30 in the am by the guys down the hall playing a guitar and partying. not fun. sat was uneventful, drank some beers with a out of town friend. I did some studying for class next week as they say the next two weeks will be the hardest of the entire course. All next week is on yeast. It should be an interesting week. I threw up some pictures of the class room and the school bar. We got a half barrel of Lagunitas IPA on tap friday. Most people up at school don't really find it to be anything special. We should be getting another keg of something tomorrow. Alright, i'm off to finish watching the hockey game.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Weekly quizzes


So today i'm currently studying for my quiz tomorrow and i'd thought i'd share just what topics it would be over. We go through a 3 inch binder of material a week, here is what we went through this week. Brewing water, Brewhouse design, brewing books, mashing- enzymes, adjunct types, malt handling/milling, mashing tech./wort, cereal cooker, lautering, mash filters, wort boiling, wort clarification, wort cooling/ aeration, brewing calculations. This was only over 4 days due to the field trip on tuesday. So its quite a bit to study. As is well though as i have been studying by butt off. We finished the half barrel of sierra nevada pale ale which is good, everyone was getting tired of only having another america pale on and the same kolsch that has been almost the entire time we have been in class. Well i might post something later but its back to studying for me.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Briess Trip






So It was a long day yesterday. everyone made the 7am bus which was very quite. Most people slept until we got there 3.5 hours later. Once we were there we learned about how briess does there malting process. Interesting fact is that its in an 109 year old malt house and its the smallest malt house in the country. The tour was cool but no pictures were aloud inside so i can't show you the cool stuff. Most of the malting equipment looked like it was from the 30's era. The storage facility was also really old, it was pretty old fashion with all of the old wooden levers to move grain from one place to another. The basement was pretty short. lots of ducking and weaving through the support beams. I should point out that our hardhats on the inside said they were not to be used as hardhats. One of the cooler parts of the facility was the package line. It was completely automated, to fill the 50lb sacks from start to finish. For those that know what super sacs are they filled those there as well. Everything went straight onto a truck and nothing was stored there. After the tour we went back to briess headquarters for lunch and another speaker. At this point they started feeding us beer. Once the uneventful lecture was over it was back on the bus for the ride home. The only different on this ride was the 5 coolers placed throughout the bus fill with beer for us to drink. Lets just say the ride home was no nearly as quiet as the way up. By the time we got back everyone was either drunk or "buzzing like a chainsaw" and some people including myself had another beer at the beir stube. After this of course we went out to a bar for more drinks and cheap burgers. I then promptly passed out at 9:30 and had the best night of sleep here so far. The whole ideal of studying on the bus ride never happened. Oh well just means more of it tonight.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Closet



So here is just a little imagine of my closet and what i brought up here to help cut my beer expenses. I should also note i brought up a 1/6 barrel of apa which got put on the school bar and promptly was emptied within a day.