DRAFT Magazine

This time of year, like most guys, I tend not to venture out from the homestead on the weekend. It’s playoff season, buddy. Negotiating a beer while in a horizontal position is threefold: workout, reward and pure scientific marvel. But alas, this past weekend the playoff clouds parted, and from somewhere off in the distance the distinct aroma of pungent mash wafted in on the desert wind through my dusty window screen. I’ll catch you next time “Space Cowboys.”

In the homebrew world, it seems when the game’s not on, the pot is (we’re outdoors year-round in these parts). See, DRAFT HQ’s based in Phoenix, so while the rest of the country’s throwing on an extra layer of long johns, we’re trying to decide whether it’s jacket weather — it’s not. Once in a blue moon, the Arizona Society of Homebrewers will set up shop in the back lot of a local homebrew store to down a few beers, nom a few sausages and, of course, brew. And that’s where I found them. At least 12 rigs peppered the lot, brewing an array of styles: kölsch, brown ale, porter, pale ale, you name it. Drink a beer, stir a pot, then “stir the pot” with some playful banter. And as what usually happens when creative types mingle, talk of experimentation reared it’s beguiling head.

If you make an out-of-this-world, yet straightforward IPA, then, sir, I am your lifelong friend. But as much as I love The Beatles’ perfectly simple “All My Loving,” “Happiness is a Warm Gun” scratches a darker itch. Pushing boundaries is simply ingrained in human nature. So what crazy ingredients have these homebrewers thrown in the pot? I lost track, but it goes something like this: Wormwood. Whole bananas. Persimmons. Prickly pear. Chocolate syrup. Maple syrup. Jalapeños. And so on. Experimentation is logical, but like Timothy Leary’s disciples found, it can MESS YOU UP. Nabbing prickly pears in the bleak desert’s 120° heat involves thick gloves, tong skills and fancy electrolytes: Those bastards are tricky, I tell you.

So, if that’s what homebrewers are up to, what about the pros? We got in touch with a bunch of brewers regarding their most far-out ventures, and since the response was overwhelming, we pared it down to a few choice extreme tidbits of experimenting in the brewhouse. Some are past failures by today’s great brewers, and others are success stories about to arrive at your nearest discerning bottle shop.

Okay weird guy, do me a favor and introduce the house band. Take it away Eric:

Let’s get with the strange brew.

Hoping to get in touch with his roots, The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery’s Paul Philippon used sweet street smarts in his early years to locate a shrub connect. The result was not so sweet.

Back in the early 1990s, before I became a professional brewer, I brewed a batch of beer with an Argentine green tea called Yerba Mate. My father immigrated to this country from Argentina, and it was through that connection that I had come to love Mate. At that time it was not very well known in the U.S. at all, so I thought that would be something fun and unique. I used the Mate as one would use a whirlpool and dry hops. It was decidedly not a success: The Mate lent a rather thin astringent character to the beer. I see now that there is at least one (if not more) brewery making a Mate beer commercially. I definitely look forward to trying that, and I hope they had better success than I did!
Come on MateVeza, send him some samples.

Like The Beatles, Black Raven Brewing’s Beaux Bowman dips classical structure in a kaleidoscopic prism of tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Look at this list of hits — time to start a bottling campaign, my fellow consumers.

We have cask firkin nights each Wednesday. As such, this gives us a great chance to experiment with different ingredients and flavors, 10 gallons at a time. Each cask is filled with a base-beer, meaning one of our beers is racked off after primary fermentation. To this cask we will add additional ingredients and then prime the cask and condition. Some examples of casks we have served:
* Trickster IPA with California orange peel and a tangerine/ginger spice blend.
* Trickster IPA with cranberries, nutmeg, ginger and pecans.
* Trickster IPA with sage, yarrow, honeybush and ginger.
* Tamerlane Brown Porter with toasted, shredded coconut.
* Tamerlane Brown Porter with tamarind, California orange peel, peppercorns and rum-soaked French oak chips.
* Tamerlane Brown Porter with treacle, Aji Mirasol peppers, cinnamon, allspice, thyme and ginger.
* Tamerlane Brown Porter with toasted pecans.
* Morrighan Stout with black treacle, bourbon vanilla beans and rum-soaked French oak chips.
* And our latest creation that has been casked but not yet tapped: Totem Pale with organic mountain grown catnip.
Catnip, everybody. Catnip.

The Lost Abbey and Port Brewing’s ever-humble, yet über-talented Tomme Arthur told us how he got rid of his checkout aisle sweet tooth.

My first foray into extreme brewing was my third batch of homebrew. We really wanted to brew a watermelon wheat. At that time, we couldn’t figure out how to brew with real watermelon so we went with the next best thing: Jolly Rancher candy that was watermelon flavored. Surprisingly, the candy sort of worked…Okay not so much.
We can’t blame you Tomme. Watermelon, grape and sour apple make the artificial flavor trifecta constantly trumping Mother Nature’s best effort.

Enough with nature’s candy. San Juan Brewing’s Oren Combs gets straight to the meat. Salty, crispy meat.

Bacon Beer! Based on a pale ale, we infused a cellared batch with real bacon. The idea formed organically from a discussion among friends and staff about food in general — pork fat in particular. The suggestion floated around that maybe I would make bacon beer, which created quite a few chuckles. Then someone stated, ‘Be careful, Oren WILL make it!’ It started as a dare, or maybe a challenge. Bacon beer was just an idea for quite a few years, finally actually going on tap in 2008. It is not presently produced, but it has been a summer seasonal here on the island for the last few years. San Juan Brewing is in the midst of repairs from flood damage, and has been closed since the beginning of the year.
Raise your funds, grab a fresh can of paint and go see Oren. There’s no reason this world should be denied a seasonal bacon beer. It’s basically a human right.

Speaking of human rights, this human has been right with almost every brew. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of tasting some of Short’s Brewing’s concoctions, swap that sightseeing trip to Yellowstone this summer with a jaunt to Michigan. From the mouth of wizard Joe Short:

Our Bloody Beer employed horseradish, tomato, pepper, celery seed and dill — this beer actually won a medal at the GABF last year. Recently I’ve used, tumeric, anise, cardamom, vanilla bean, molasses, honey, clove, juniper and elder berry — scheduled to release in our pub next month as “Holistic Healing.”
Also scheduled to be released next month: Bananas & Blow — chocolate and bananas in wheat beer at the pub. In addition we have S’more Stout, featuring milk-chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker crumbs. This will be released later this winter in limited 12-ounce six-packs. Smoked Apple ale is also scheduled to be released in 12-ounce bottles, which employs smoked malt and apples.
Our latest unsuccessful beer employed two failed attempts with macadamia nuts. We think there might have been some bacteria in the nuts.
Holy smokes, no living edible is safe around Joe Short.

Now from the city of “White Light/White Heat” we’ve got Sixpoint Craft Ale’s Dave Liatti, who’s making sure his upcoming brew’s both velvety and underground with a rarely used technique.

[We’re making] a stein beer, which basically involves dumping hot rocks into the wort for added carmelization of the malt. We’ll be using granite rocks [because] granite is very stable under intense heat; other forms of rock can potentially shatter under high temperature. The granite is heated in fire until red or white hot, then placed in a steel mesh basket and immersed into simmering wort. These superheated rocks aid in boiling the wort and the extremely high temperature caramelizes some of the sugars. After boiling, the same granite is used in the conditioning phase where the caramelized sugars on the surface of the rock alter the flavor profile of the beer. We’re brewing this beer specifically for The Modern, which is a Danny Meyer restaurant located at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

As our final pick, meet Chris Davis. Brewer for North Carolina’s soon-to-be official Fullsteam Brewery — brainchild of beer activist Sean Wilson — Davis is tearing through the verdant countryside for new brews.

At Fullsteam Brewery we’re all about brewing with unorthodox ingredients. Our “Plow to Pint” series relies heavily on seasonal Southern agriculture and local farm traditions. We’re not yet open to the public, so all of our test-batches have been on my homebrew system. One of our most successful experiments involved a rather unusual ingredient: local rhubarb. Liborius Gollhardt is a sour-mashed rhubarb beer in the Berliner weisse style — it’s like lemonade meets strawberry-rhubarb pie (without the strawberries). The tart, tangy beer is a refreshing summer sipper, recalling the old days of seersucker suits and tea dresses with parasols. When Fullsteam launches this spring, we expect Liborius Gollhardt will be one of our very first “Plow to Pint” offerings.
However, a trial that turned against me was when I used wild yeast from the skins of scuppernongs — a sweet, thick-skinned grape native to North Carolina — to ferment our Sparkling Scuppernong Ale. A first attempt was wildly (pun intended) successful in producing a nice tart, funky and flavorful beer. On the second batch, I discovered the wild yeast isn’t as reliable as I had hoped. We wound up with a beer that was nothing but band-aid and medicinal off-flavors.

Now, not every experiment ends in revelation, and not every blog ends a topic. We’ve got more epic fails and beautiful success stories from extreme brewing coming your way in the future. Engage the bugle horn:

Announcement No. 1: America’s next top brewer
Homebrewers in the audience: Each week we plan to feature one great recipe from the realm of garage brewing. Do you want your recipe posted in the beer editor’s blog? If not, I don’t blame you. If so, submit NOW. THIS IS YOUR MEAL TICKET (and by that, I mean 10 people will read this blog and one will rip your recipe off). Steadfast, my friends.

Announcement No. 2: Send me your questions (um, rants)
My mailbox is gaining weight thanks to last Friday’s blog, but it’s still hungry. Send me a question — beer-related or not — to be featured in full with a complete, academically researched answer. I PUT ON MY BIFOCALS FOR YOU.

Hope your Monday doesn’t suck. Check back tomorrow for an appetizer; another full entrée’s coming your way on Wednesday.

EMAIL ME YOUR EMAILS!