Beer Festival This Weekend

St. Francis Brewery is proud to be a part of a second "First-Annual" beer event this Saturday.

The Milwaukee Brewfest takes place this Saturday.  Details can be found here.

Bring 3 cans of food with you and take $10 off your ticket!  Dig in that pantry and find those lima beans. 

Givum Helles!

If you've been following my blog, you may remember this post: 

Well, I kegged and carbonated the Helles and it was excellent.  I served it at a surprise birthday party for my wife and five gallons was gone in about 1 1/2 hours.

I decided this will be the St. Francis Seasonal for the month of August.  Additionally, the yeast I'm using will be the same one I'll use for the Oktoberfest, so I'll have plenty of yeast when I brew it later this month.

Helles (pronounced Hell-us) is a German Light Lager--similar to a Pilsener, but not nearly as hoppy.  It's a clean, malty beer.  In fact, the Germans were getting nervous with the popularity of the Czech Pilsener style so they came up with this as a competitor.

This beer will debut for the Mug Club on August 11.

Speaking of Oktoberfest, this year's Oktoberfest will be an all-out celebration.  We're talking tents, dirndl-wearing wenches, polka bands, sausages, and lots of delicious Oktoberfest bier to wet your whistles.  More on this will follow, but mark your calendars for September 25th!!

"Test Brewing" this week.

When I first interviewed for a Brewer's Assistant internship years back, the Brewmaster had a lot of questions for me.  Finally, he asked if I had any questions and I had one.  "Do you still homebrew?"

The answer was, "no".

That answer always bothered me.  I liken it to the cab driver who hates to drive, or the professional chef who hates cooking at home.  I don't understand it.

I still homebrew.  I also get the opportunity to test brew batches of beer to see if they will be commercially viable.  We're talking very small batches--5 to 10 gallons.  Will the results be the same as a commercial size?  Not exactly, but pretty darn close. 

Though I've never been a huge fan of stouts, I really like a good porter.  Therefore, I'm going to test brew a molasses porter this week.  The recipe is a tweaking of a brown porter I found, but I am going to include a new seasonal malt from Briess called Carabrown--it adds a toasty, graham cracker taste to the beer.  It will also include molasses which I've never used in brewing, but I'm interested in trying it out. 

If it's decent, you may see it on the beer board down the road.

In the meantime, stop on in for a Saison.  Next week I'll brew next month's seasonal--"Givum Helles".  More on that later.

Happy Birthday, America!

The brewery is closed today, so that our staff can enjoy Independence Day with their families.  My hat is off to those who keep us safe and secure.  Thank you.

Tapping this Wednesday, July 7th

Belgium.  Great beer comes from here.

This Wednesday, I will tap the Summer Night Saison.

7:30 pm for all of you Mug Clubbers.

I'll have some out on the patio, weather permitting.

Not a Mug Clubber?  No problem.  You are welcome to stop in on Thursday for yours.

The Beer Board (A Primer)

The St. Francis Brewery Beer Board

You may have seen this board outside the brewhouse.  You may also wonder what the heck some of these numbers mean. 

This board exists for several reasons.  For most of you, it serves to tell you what beers are on tap, and when they were tapped.  For you "beer geeks" out there, there are a few more numbers that provide information about the beer.

I love beer geeks.  I am one.  I want you to be one too.

Let's start with the the column "O.G."  This stands for Original Gravity.  Gravity is a measure of the percentage of sugar in a solution.  Brewers, Winemakers, and fruit juice producers all measure gravities of their products.  The original gravity is a measure of the sugar content before fermentation occurs.  The original gravity will always be higher than the second number, "F.G." or Final Gravity.  Once we add the yeast, the yeast will start eating the sugar to reproduce.  As the sugar is consumed, the alcohol levels rise.  Eventually there's not much food (sugar) left for the yeast and they start to become dormant.

When the fermentation cycle is complete, I'll take the final gravity reading.  By using a simple calculation, I am able to provide a good estimate of the Alcohol by Volume or ABV--the next column. 

Our gravities are expressed in degrees Plato.  Most homebrewers use a different scale called the Specific Gravity scale.

The higher the O.G. number, the stronger the beer will be, and vice-versa.

Thus concludes today's lesson.

Amen

Hero Worship

I don't have many heroes in my life.  There's my dad.  The guy who first hired me to be his brewer's assistant.  An ex-boss brewmaster who taught me both from him and in spite of him how to be a better brewer, etc. 

Some heroes are less tangible and don't even know they're your heroes.

That's why I jumped at the chance to meet John Palmer today.  Over ten years ago, John wrote a book, "How to Brew" and made it available, free of charge, online.  It was so comprehensive that I couldn't get enough of it.  I downloaded and printed out the entire thing.  It was so useful that I felt guilty having obtained it for free that I bought a "real" copy.  John has since co-authored a second book, "Brewing Classic Styles" which I have purchased and used.

John held a book signing, thanks to the great guys at Northern Brewer, and I couldn't pass up a chance to meet one of my brewing mentors.  John is a laid-back guy hailing from southern California who was up in Minnesota for the Homebrewing Conference in the Twin Cities this past weekend.  John gave up his Father's Day (he is one) to sign his books and chat with Milwaukee-area homebrewers.

I brought along a growler of our current seasonal, "Number Nine IPA" which John enjoyed, further inflating my ego. 

Anyway, here are a few photos.  My thanks go out to John, and to David Kelley and the rest of the guys at Northern Brewer for making this an extra-special Father's Day for me.

Me and John Palmer, enjoying a Number Nine IPA from St. Francis Brewery.

Yeah, I did mention that I had a bit of a "man-crush" on John.  I was quickly corrected by Jaime at Northern Brewer that the proper term is "Bro-mance".