AleFest 2007-Columbus, OH

Rob, Mark, Nick and Jeff joined me

Earlier this month I attended Columbus AleFest with some friends. The event was held at the Alladin Shriners Building near Easton. There were 50 craft brewers with over 200 beers. Once admission was paid, each person received 20 sample tickets, a sample glass and a raffle ticket. I never measured the sample glass, but it was probably 2-3 ounces. For the most part I tried to sample beers that I had not had before. I was a bit disappointed that most of the people serving beer were volunteers, and not representatives from the company. I first noticed this while wearing my Harpoon IPA shirt and walking up to the Harpoon table, and I did not get any reaction. I appreciate the work of the volunteers, as this event benefits Special Olympics, but the brewer and beer connoisseur in me wanted to talk beer with the experts. There were two beers that stuck out with me. I had a flemish ale, which had a unique spicy and sour taste, with banana and bubble gum esthers. It reminded me of a farmouse ale or a lambic without fruit. The winner for the day was Southern Tier Unearthly Imperial IPA. I had my eye out for an IIPA and fell in love with this one. Think IPA on steroids, meaning a lot more hops and fermentable sugars and you get this beer that checks in at an incredible 11% alcohol and 153 IBUs. Think about that for a second. Most of your beers out there are under 40 IBU (International Bitterness Unit.) Regular India Pale Ales, which are considered high in bitterness register at 40-100 in most cases. As far as the alcohol, most beers are in the 4-6% range and a high gravity could be 8-10%. It was nice seeing the local beers, Columbus Brewing Company and Hosters. Evidently Hosters still does not have a location re-opened in Columbus yet, but they are brewing and bringing it into Columbus for bars and stores. Columbus Brewing Company actually had company reps, including one of the brewers. It was great talking to them. We had a few samples of the Maibock, which was a nice change of pace.


Dogfish Head wins the award for most interesting display, as they had the 90-minute IPA running into a filter filled with fresh hops before coming through a flash cooler and out the tap. For those that don't know, flash coolers are the most logical setup for portable keg beer. Instead of worrying about a big trash can and bags of ice that melt in less than an hour, you run the kegged beer through copper tubing that loops around through a cooler that is filled with ice and water and a tap is installed on the side of the cooler. The beer comes out of a room temperature keg and it is flash cooled before being dispensed. Of course you may also want to use a CO2 tank for consistent flow. The principle of a flash cooler works much like a wort chiller in homebrewing, which is used to quickly chill boiled wort before it is placed into the primary fermenter.

Here I enjoy a Sam Adams with one of our founding fathers.

Can I pull of a lager?

I set a goal at the beginning of this year to make an Oktoberfest lager for the festival this September in Cincinnati. I have found a Märzen lager style recipe that can be prepared in 2.5 months. Ideally Märzens are started in March, hence the name, but due to the wonders of refrigeration, a batch can be started during the summer and still be lagered correctly. It requires a dedicated fridge that can be held at the proper temperature at the various stages. The yeast prefers 48-58 degrees for primary fermentation and bottle fermentation. The long 6-20 week secondary conditioning and the 2-4 week bottle maturing require near freezing temperatures. This recipe was made in March, because it was still cold enough in Germany to use the help of Mother Nature. If I start the recipe at the end of June, it will be ready for Oktoberfest in Cincinnati on September 22.

I have located a fridge in working condition and I have purchased a temperature control. The temperature control is able to hold a fridge or freezer anywhere in the 20-80 degree range. Like most older fridges, the one I have will not go under 40 degrees very easily, but it should be fine. For the bottle conditioning at near freezing temperatures, I might be able to place the bottles into the freezer portion, but the secondary fermenter will not fit in the freezer.

Check back for updates!

Initial Reviews of Lab Work

The Näf-Woods Homebrew Lab offered a sampling of the first experiment. In this previous post I described the three hard cider recipes. One batch used cider, another used apple juice and a third used apple juice and rasberries. The overwhelming favorite was the plain apple juice. It had a champagne like dry taste. The cider batch had a strange sour after taste. The apple juice with rasberries was good and may get better with age, but the fruit had a lambic flavor without the sour taste. The batch only resulted in 4.5 bottles for each recipe, and the remaining bottles will be aged and sampled in July. At this point it appears another test batch will be run with apple juice, champagne yeast, corn sugar, and apple juice will be put into the secondary in place of the apple enhancer to enhance the apple flavor.

ESB and Hefeweizen update

Both the ESB and Hefeweizen are bottle conditioning. Both tasted good when bottled. I actually tried one of the ESBs this past weekend, and I was very happy. It has only been in the bottle for 1.5 weeks, so the carbonation will increase. I expect both to be ready in another week or two. As you may recall, these are my first two attempts at an all grain recipe.

Belgian Ale update

As I stated in a previous post, the Belgian Ale is bottled. I think the flavor has smoothed out a bit, and it is ready for distribution. It is a darker than I expected, but clarity is good. There are still hints of banana and clove, but that was expected with this recipe. Let me know if you want a bottle. I will post the recipe and review soon.