The Monk's Blood is Bottled!

In a marathon session on Wednesday, October 13th the first SUDSY cask ale was bottled. Our Belgian Tripel, Monk's Blood, sat in a Robert Mondavi Cabernet oak cask for three months. Although this oaked beer was an experiment for us, it was a rather large (and expensive) experiment, so we were fairly apprehensive. It didn't help that we had a tasting of the Monk's Blood about a month ago and it was... well, I don't want to say it was undrinkable... so I won't. When we siphoned off a small amount into a glass, however, we were immediately impressed by the improvements in both its color and fruity aroma. It also had remarkable clarity. Upon tasting it, the Monk's Blood had a surprisingly light yet distinctly oaky flavor and had mellowed more than any of us had dared hope it could in a single month. We even tasted it against our control batch of tripel, bottled before ever being introduced to the oak cask. The oaked version won quite handily.

We first kegged five gallons of it to share at our second (annual?) SUDSY fruity-off on October 22nd and then got down to business. Dan had prepared a starter since we weren't sure how viable the yeast would be after this time, so we began, five gallons at a time: filling the bottling bucket from the cask, adding a cup and a half of the starter, adding the primer and filling up the bottles. Once we got the assembly line of sanitizing, filling and capping down it actually went pretty smoothly, if not quickly. We weren't in a hurry, though. And were actively discussing future SUDSY activities, the potential we have for competing in some national competitions in the coming year and options for our next two cask ales (in addition to the cabernet cask, we also inherited an old bourbon oak cask from the fantastic folks over at Blackfoot). As midnight neared we were capping and stacking the last of the bottles and draining the bottoms of our own glasses. All told, the final tally was somewhere a little over 350 bottles, one keg and four fully content brewers.

Brew Tour - Quarry Brewing

Butte, Montana. Quarry Brewing. The names evoke images of squinting, soot-covered men emerging from the inky depths of the mines and trudging to the local tavern to drink, fight, gamble, carouse with women of ill repute, and settle their debts with lumps of ore dispensed from leather pouches worn around their necks. Well, that’s what I imagined anyway.

Quarry turned out to be a pretty standard microbrewery. There was nothing fancy about this place, just decent folks drinking decent beer. The brewing floor was partially visible from the taproom, and it looked like a pretty small operation. Beers on tap included Galena Golden Ale, Shale Pale Ale, Open Cab Copper, Open Pit Porter (tasty!), and a few others. Be sure to order the sampler here – it’s dirt cheap, and most of the brews are good if not great. While no SUDSY member picked Quarry as their favorite brewery of the weekend, everyone agreed that it was a worthwhile stop on the Montana tour.

A word to the wise: don’t visit on a Sunday unless you plan on spending the entire day at Quarry. There was literally nowhere else in town to grab a pint on Sunday, and believe me, we looked. In fact, by all appearances there was nowhere else to do anything on Sunday. There were no cars, no people … just the whisper of the wind and the gentle rustling of the tumbleweeds.

More on Quarry Brewing at: http://www.wedigbeer.com/

Bayern Brewery

From the scent of bratwurst, right down to Klaus, the stern mensch dolloping out sauerkraut, Bayern brewery brings a touch of Deutschland to Montana. Bayern Brewing, founded in 1987 and purchased in 1991 by current owner Jürgen Knöller, is the only German brewery in the Rocky Mountains. As part of our Montana breweries tour, S.U.D.S.Y. stopped by Bayern, toured their brewing facilities, and had a brat and a brew.

Bayern had on tap for us their usuals; Pils, Schwarzbier, Amber, Wilbur Weizen, the Dragon’s Breath Dark Hefeweizen, and, the always controversial, Dancing Trout. Their seasonal brews were the Dump Truck Summer Bock and their Märzen, just in time for Oktoberfest! The Oktoberfest was surprisingly dark and especially excellent. A great chat with Jürgen as we were heading out finished off our visit in fine German style.

S.U.D.S.Y. marches on.

Prost!

www.bayernbrewery.com

Brew Tour - Big Sky Brewing

S.U.D.S.Y. is currently in the middle of a Montana Breweries Tour. We hope to visit every brewery in the state. Over Labor Day weekend, we completed another leg of the tour. The plan was to visit Big Sky, Bayern, Kettlehouse, Blacksmith, Bitter Root, and Quarry breweries. So, Friday morning, we packed up and headed for Missoula.

First stop was Big Sky Brewing Company. Big Sky is the largest brewery in the state. Production for 2010 is expected to reach 38,000 barrels, and they continue to grow.

We arrived at Big Sky's tasting room early to give us plenty of time to sample their beers before our tour. Because Big Sky is not a microbrewery, they offer four eight ounce tasters instead of the standard three pint glasses. The benefit is that the tasters are free. On tap, Big Sky had all of their flagship beers, Moose Drool Brown Ale, Scape Goat Pale Ale, Trout Slayer Ale, and Big Sky IPA. In addition, they offered Summer Honey Ale, Pilsener, Saison, and Scottish Ale. Although all of the beers were excellent, the Saison seemed to be a group favorite, with a very typical saison look and strong banana notes. After having a chance to taste most the of the beers, we were greated by our tour guide, Matt Long, Head Brewer at Big Sky. Matt was an excellent host, showing us all the steps that Big Sky goes through in the production of their beers.
We were especially captivated by the canning line. Matt explained the whole process, and we even performed a little quality control. We also had a lengthy conversation about brewing, homebrewing, and barrel aging. He even gave us a bottle of their tripel to compare to our own version currently barrel aging.
Thanks to Matt for a great time. A trip to Big Sky is recommended.

60 Gallons

60 gallons sounds like a lot of beer. 60 gallons is a lot of beer. No matter how many times you say that you're making 60 gallons of home brew, however, you aren't prepared for how much beer it FEELs like you're making. For the last couple of months here are SUDSY Brewing central we've been moving steadily from the planning stage, through the purchasing and transporting stages to arrive squarely at the production stage of our latest project. A used 60 gallon oak Cabernet(?) cask has been purchased from the folks at Mondavi Family Vineyards in St. Helena, CA and driven out to Bozeman Montana where our brewing efforts have been bumped up to record levels. (Ignore the fact that the previous record was set by four drunk guys sitting around and waiting for a barley wine to boil down).

Even as the cask was on en route to Bozeman, debate continued concerning the style of beer to brew. While a head brewer over at Blackfoot Brewery in Helena suggested a sour brown, none of us had brewed a sour style beer before, and I'm a person who shed more than one tear when a recent 5 gallon batch of IPA became infected beyond my ability to repair. None of us were willing to risk the integrity of our 60 gallons. Eventually we decided upon a Belgian Tripel. We felt that a tripel was complex enough to positively absorb some of the oak and wine characteristics and that it was a beer worthy of a project this grand.

So the brewing has commenced and carboys are lined up at Dan’s house being filled, fermented and drained as quickly as we can grind grain and get the yeast going. Stay tuned for updates, along with monthly flavor profiles during the aging process.