Thrashed an arrogant bastard & bloody simcoe!

Last night, I eventually managed to escape the evil clutches of my old, slow, demanding computer and headed off to the Thrash Zone, one of my favourite bars.
When I got there, around 9pm, it was already packed. Standing room only, gentlemen.There were a few guys from the Yokosuka base drinking and being merry with their ladies, some Japanese salarymen, an American regular, a new regular from Greece and a few other Japanese regular customers. The usual suspects.
First up was a Simcoe Bloody Simcoe, a brew made as a collaboration between Koichi san of the Thrash zone and Atsugi beer, also in Kanagawa prefecture. At 105 IBUsand 7% alcohol, it's no cute kitten, more a snarling tiger of a brew.
Atsugi have been improving recently, bringing out a very good Belgian triple strong ale at the first Grande Bier beer festival in Roppongi that won itself many new fans. I remember visiting their brewpub a few years ago and not being impressed much by the uninspiring beers. It's good to see them improving. They have also made Yokohama honey ale, the Kanda Schwarz on tap at the JHA bar in Kanda and a collaboration beer for Cheers, in Yokohama - a Belgian yeast beer called The Joker.

This baby was available in a total of 4 combinations:

1. Simcoe bloody simcoe original version
2. Simcoe bloody simcoe simcoe dry hopped
3. Simcoe bloody simceo amarillo dry hopped
4. Simcoe bloody simcoe amarillo & simcoe dry hopped

These were on tap, one at a time.
My favourite was the simcoe dry hopped.
Tonight, the last 20 litres of this lovely brew were on offer.
Thrash was also serving Stone Arrogant Bastard, on tap.
An amazing beer and one of my and many others' favourites.

Well, my first beer was the
Simcoe Bloody Simcoe simcoe dry hopped:

From memory, I knew I was in for something special. I wasn't dissappointed.
Well, maybe a little.
This didn't seem to pack the fresh hop punch that the first one I had did. It still packed quite a whallop, mind you! The balance between dry hopping flavour, aroma and the beer's own flavour seemed a bit out. I think the dry hopping came through too strongly.
Overpowering the original beer's voice a bit too much. They seemed to compete, rather than compliment. I've read that with freshly dry hopped beers, the sooner can sometimes be the better, in terms of getting the max from the dry hopping. It reminds me of a cup of tea, where the tea bag has been left steeping a bit to long. You can taste it. Whilst not being it's best, this beer is still quite nice and very drinkable, bearing in mind it's 7% and 105 IBUs of hops!
I'd give this one 5.6-6/10. It used to be an easy 7-7.5, but the flavour has changed. Not for the better, in my opinion.
Still this is a good beer and a special one. The last 18 litres or so are going fast, so if you want to try it, head to Thrash zone soon.

My second pint for the night was to give Minoh's W-IPA (DIPA) another chance:

Minoh make some good beer. They are based in Osaka. The father and daughters brew the stuff and have won several awards (including being voted the world's best dry stout in the World Beer Awards 09 - WTF?).
Their most famous brew is their WIPA. 'W ' often being pronounced as 'double' among the Japanese, hence the DIPA being written as WIPA.
Their 9% DIPA used to really kick ass, a few years ago. However, the last couple of years, the flavour has gone from being an outstanding beer, to just a very good one or at times, mediocre and dissappointing. I'm not sure if this is due to a change in recipe or ingredients, but there has been a noticeable change. It's not just me who has noticed this and those beer fans who are not just obsessed Minoh lovers (Most breweries here have them - fans who loyally will stick by their brewery/team/tribe, regardless of whether the beer is still good or not.) will also accept this.
I do hope the W-IPA will regain it's place as possibly the best DIPA in Japan. So far, it hasn't.
Well, I decided to give it another go. The last one I had was just too malty sweet. Their DIPA has always been quite sweet, due to the higher malt profile and possibly more than a little unfermentable/unfermented sugars in the beer.
My first impression was that the colour looked very nice indeed.
The pouring as always in Thrash was first class. Temperature perhaps a little cold for the style but not super chilled and better than a lot of other bars in Japan (places here quite often serve the beer at almost Bud/Heinken/SuperDry serving cold temps, regardless of style).
The aroma was definitely dry hopped.
Way, way over dry hopped, in my opinion.
I smelled and tasted flowers, plain and simple.
My first sip was 'Oh no.'.
Is this now becoming a trend, among craft brewers in Japan?

Beers used to be based on the old German style - the lagers, pilsners, alts, weissens and schwarzes or dunkles.
Then the pale ales came on the scene.
Then the barley wines took off.
Then it was the American IPAs.
Now it seems everything has to be dry hopped and aggressively so.
I think this is going too far.

The Simcoe and Minoh were way too strongly dry hopped.
It was not easy to discern the original beer's flavour profile, the hops were just too strong.
I did not enjoy this beer that much.
It did get better, the more I drank it but maybe that was because my tastes buds were adjusting.
I was really hoping for some nice fresh, not too strong hop flavour and aroma, to balance out the sweetness from the malts.
I was dissapointed. Instead of the malts dominating, the dry hopping overpowered everything.

However, don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking the beer itself as horrbile. It wasn't a horrible beer and was very drinkable. The Americans near me loved it and referred to it as 'nose candy'. They had had quite a few beers before that, though - including a big bottle or the 2006 Double Bastard and a bottle of Rasputin Imperial Stout.

I thought it was too aggressively dry hopped. Too much flower aromas, almost perfume like.
If you like that, then maybe this is the beer for you.
It wasn't the beer for me.
Minoh DIPA still dissappoints.
Maybe I say that not because I think it's bad, just more because I know it can be better.

Minoh DIPA 5.5/10

The Minoh DIPA dry hopped is on tap across Tokyo now. Search it out. Let me know what you think. If you agree or disagree, I'd love to hear from you.

Finally, I went for a tried and tested favourite:

The Stone Arrogant Bastard.

Here again, Koichi san demonstrates the attention he gives to every pint poured - he even pricks the bubbles on the head for you!

The Arrogant Bastard!

Just kidding. This beer is lovely. One of my all time favourites.
It was served in great condition and poured very well, as always. One thing I thought wasn't perfect was the serving temperature.
Whilst the owner tries his best to serve every beer at the best possible temp, there is only so much he can do, when he has to store them all in the same refridgerator.
This is why the Arrogant bastard comes out a bit too cold. Just give it some time, if you can and as the beer warms, the flavours and aromas will be released and the beer will just get better, with every sip.
My problem is I can't drink slowly. I've tried, but that crafty beer always finds a way to slide down my throat.

Verdict?

The Bastard rocks!
I do love the Arrogant Bastard.
Stone Arrogant Bastard 8/10
(Just a bit too cold & I was too eager/thirsty to fully appreciate it's kick ass qualities.)

"Bow to your sensei!"

Beer of the night: Arrogant Bastard.

Merry Christmas, you lush!!

Well, it's the season to be jolly.

For this kat, that means getting hammered.There's no season like Christmas to disguise/excuse/blame the fact that you are 3 sheets to the wind, every chance you get.

December brings with it a multitude of opportunities to end up in the Emergency ward of your nearest hospital.

The biggest and best of those are the Maltan 3rd Anniversarry insanity event and the Nagano Trading December to Remember strong beer party

Beer in Japan mentioned these events and so will I!

I was 1 of only 2 foreigners who made it to Maltan's anniverary last year and boy, was that one crazy party!

Lots of beer, lots of friends, lots of fun!

Basically, the owner/manager gets in about 15 or so special beers and just stands back and watches, whilst the customers fight for control of the taps and pour themselves pints of anything they fancy, from weissens, to lagers, to Barley wines.It's nuts.

I arrived just 15 minutes late last year and already a barrel of Hakuskeikan barley wine was gone! I'm talking a whole barrel of 15% alc in 15 minutes.

Holy schmoly!

The deal is you pay 3,600yen and you bring your own glass and help yourself.

Simple. Effective. Fun.

He has 2 handpumps and a lot of other taps.

He rotates the barrels and beers around and once the barrel is gone, it's gone.

He opens from around 3 and stays open until the beer is finished.

Fantastic.

Having just enjoyed the also great Gambrinus all-u-can-drink-&-eat 2nd Anniversary, this one is the sh*t, the bomb, the dog's bollocks, as it were, for getting almighty blotto at.
This year's beer include Shiroyama mikan white, Hakusekikan super vintage and hurricane, Yona Yona cask conditioned, Nagahama ale, Daisen weissen, Iwate Kura oyster stout, Minoh WIPA, Ginga Kogen weissen and maybe more!

I love that it's self service. I love that you bring your own glass of choice.

I love that you can bring in your own food.

I love that the choice is bloody good (lots of beer styles to please everyone and good choices, too).

I love that it's just 3,600yen.

Gotta love it.

I just don't love that it's on a Sunday.

Oh, well.

See you there.
_____________________________________________

p.s. Here are some pics from last year.
Warning: some pics may disturb you, whilst some may make you want to get to Maltan, this Sunday.
I think you'll agree, they need little describing!







Go on, come and have a drink or twelve with me at Maltan.

Pssst...want some prime American green?

Courtesy of my very own 'Mr.Miyage of hops', BrewedinJapan, I managed to pick up some good old green, the other night.
I managed to get me some chinook, cascade and US goldings at a fraction of the price that stuff costs over here, in Japan.
Looking forward to brewing with that stuff, soon.
I was a bit worried, carrying the stuff back on the train. The smell was fantastic but what if someone mistook my aromatic green for 'something else'? Would the Japanese police buy my story that I am just a budding home brewer, and not an entrepreneurial drug dealer?

Well, I had the stuff out on display, in a desperate effort to be caught (isn't that what all criminals secretly desire?), but I arrived home without incident.

I put the bags in the freezer and just today separated them out into approximately 1 ounce (about 28-30g) sized freezer bagged portions.

Here's the Goldings bag, just before splitting it up into 1 ounce portions:

The job took some time but man, it smelled glorious!
I think my favourite hops, aroma wise of the three were the chinook. This surprised me, as they have the highest alpha acids and are often used as a bittering hop (you can use less of these, boiled at 60 minutes or so, to produce a certain level of background bitterness than with the lower alpha acid hops - less usually means cheaper!) but the aroma was lovely, seemingly balanced and smooth.

So, now I have my freezer section of my beer fridge occupied by the odd one or two hops.

Horror upon horrors, there now may not be any room for ice cream.

Crossing over to the 'otherside' - the world of homebrewing

Well, this ol' fool finally took the plunge and dived head first into the fantastical world of brewing your own beer!

A new and now very good friend of mine, BrewedinJapan, invited myself and another newcomer to, BeerKat, to his home to watch and help out with his latest batch of 'approximately 1% alcohol' homebrew.

Well, I made the best of starts by being about 2 or 3 hours late.
No suprises there.

When I finally got there, he and Beerkat had already steeped the malt and the wort was boiling away.

Incidentally, if you want to know more about brewng beer, I highly recommend this free online book How To Brew, by John Palmer. This text is very famous and quite well written. The online version is free but there is a newer 3rd edition available via the website. Highly recommended and a very interesting read.

Back to the plot.
I got to BrewinJapan's (BIJ) place and this is what I saw:You can see the huge boiling pot on the big ass stove.
I think it holds about 7 gallons or so (around 25-30litres or more).
He is boiling the wort and getting ready to add the bittering and flavoring hops and any other ingredients to the boiling wort [if you boil hops for a short time, the bitterness and aromas and flavors are kept. However, if you boil for more than say, 15 minutes, then any aromatic properties can be boiled away. Boil for about 30 minutes or more and you start losing the flavor profiles, being left more and more with just the bitterness from the hops. This is why brewers talk about bittering hops (boiled for around 60 minutes or so), flavoring hops (boiled for around 15 to 30 minutes) and aroma hops (boiled for a very short time or even sometimes added to the wort as you end the boil).].

When you boil the wort (A kind of 'unmade beer juice' - basically the sugars and starches gotten from the malt - usually barley), you should be careful of something called the boil over, especially if the volume of wort is close to the maximum capacity of your pot. A boil over is when you get large boiling mass of foam which, if left unattended, is in danger of boiling over the top of the pot. A simple method of spraying with a small 100yen water spray device tends to collapse the foam and avoid the potentially nasty boil over.

The boil over is avoided at the hot break and the mixture has now developed a steady rolling boil.
Time to add the first stage of hops - the bittering hops.
In they go!
Meanwhile, whilst all this is boiling away, it was time to get ready for bottling the previous batch!

We rinse out the empty bottles (it wasn't me who drank all that Super Dry!). You can see the wort chiller to the right. This is basically a large coil of copper piping which is put into the pot and cold water from the tap ran through it, thus extracting thermal energy from the hot wort and cooling it down quickly.

One of the most important points in brewing beer is sanitation. This is also probably why I didn't start brewing earlier. I just thought it was too much hassle.
Well, it isn't.
It's not that hard to maintain a sanitary environment.
Here BrewedinJapan has a large container, filled with a mixture or water and sanitising solution. You can use iodine or bleach solution or other chemicals but this stuff he is using doesn't need to be rinsed away, so it is very easy to use.

You can see BeerKat rinsing out the bottles. The large white bucket is the bottling bucket, to be used later on, for bottling the beer. It, like everything else that comes into contact with the beer, is sanitized.
Can you see the nifty little bottle tree?

This allows the sanitised bottles to hand upside down and drip dry.


Right. Below, you can see the top large bucket is the fermentation vessel. This is where the beer has been fermenting and maturing.
Can you see the weird thing sticking out of the top?
That is a simple airlock. using some water or sanitizing solution, this keeps a barrier to stop any unwanted bacteria entering the bucket and spoiling the beer. At the same time, any extra CO2 produced by the yeast can safely escape the bucket.
The sanitized bottling bucket is below, ready to receive the beer to be bottled.

There is however, one problem.

After the initial fermentation, after the yeast has used the oxygen in the air and the young beer to multiply, it then gets to work changing the sugars in the wort to alcohol and produces lots of CO2. However, by this stage, if the yeast comes into contact with Oxygen, this can be very bad for the beer.
So, we don't the beer being oxygenated.
Before we started, we wanted lots of oxygen in the fresh wort. Then we left it alone to ferment. However, now we don't want oxygen in the picture. From now on, oxygen is bad. So how to proceed?
We can't just empty the beer into the bottom bucket. That would oxygenate the beer and spoil it. We can't splash it either, for the same reason.

So BrewedinJapan uses dry ice (CO2) to create a CO2 layer in the bottom of the bottling bucket (CO2 is heavier than air or oxygen) and carefully draws the beer out of the top bucket, using a plastic tube to avoid splashing.

Here's the dry ice, bubbling away. He got it from Baskin Robbins (the ice cream place).
Adding it to the bottling bucket created a protective layer of CO2.
Here BrewedinJapan is adding a solution of corn sugar to the bucket (this has already been boiled, to sanitize it).
The sugar is the priming solution, with which the dormant yeast will re awaken and convert to CO2, thus making the beer carbonated. As the beer fills the bottom bucket, it will mix evenly with this mixture.
Then it was just carefully transfer the beer.
Great. Now the beer is in the bottling bucket, we can sling (not really) the top bucket and carefully put the bottling bucket up on the table.

Then we can use a special bottling rod/tube to fill the bottles.
This is just a plastic or glass tube with a spring valve on the bottom. When you put this into a bottle and press up on the valve with the bottom of the bottle, the beer is released. When you remove the upward pressure, the valve closes and the beer flow stops.
One of these items is not compulsory but it makes the bottling job easier.
Here's the bottle with the bottling rod inside, about to be connected to the tap.
I then open the tap and put pressure up on the rod using the bottom of the bottle it is inside.
Wahey! We have a controllable flow of beer! Fill each bottle to within and inch or two of the top.
Put a cap gently on top of the bottle when it is full, again to avoid oxygen or nasty things getting into contact with the beer.

Here, you can see BeerKat is busy, filling bottles:Without using a piece of silicone or rubber hose, it is not so easy to keep the contact between the tap and the bottle filler leak proof! Oops!
This is why brewing with friends is a good idea!
Oh, BeerKat! I hope that's beer on the floor...
Then they let the monkey have a go.
When all bottles are filled, it's time to put those caps on properly!

Here, BrewedinJapan is showing BeerKat how to use the bottle capping machine:

"Go on, Beerkat! Grrrr!!!!!"

The monkey joined in, too.
Here's two caps I screwed up (Hey, even monkeys make mistakes!):
Finally, all the bottles have been filled and capped!
Here is what was left of the two buckets. The sediment of yeast and sludge that shouldn't go into the bottles.

Lovely!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

..the wort has been boiling away and the hops have been added at intervals for bitterness, flavour and aroma.

It's time to hydrate the yeast.
BrewedinJapan took some yeast and added it to some water (which had been boiled, to sanitize it and allowed to cool) . This meant the yeast could waken up or at least get hydrate and hopefully get to work a little faster. This is left for a while, to hydrate.
It is covered and left alone.
For this particular brew, BrewedinJapan added some coriander seeds.
Brewers often add various ingredients to their beers. e.g. cocoa, vanilla beans, coffee beans, tea bags, fruit, coconut, young puppy dogs (just kidding), etc.
Right, the boil is over and it's time to cool the wort - fast!
WE want to cool it as fast as possible to avoid any off flavours developing in the beer. Can you see the wort chiller I talked about earlier? Well, this baby cooled about 20l of wort from about 90C to around 24C in about 20 minutes - not bad!

The beer is now at the right temperature to transfer to the primary fermenter.
In this case, it is a glass carboy. This is quite a popular choice for home brewers. You can see what's going on, inside and the glass doesn't leak oxygen into the beer and is impervious to the acidic beer. some may think it tastes 'cleaner'.
I'm not so sure. any people otherwise use plastic buckets, like the one mentioned before, which are a lot cheaper.

To transfer the beer, we cyphon it, using a length of hose.


Here it doesn't matter so much if the beer splashes. We actually want oxygen in it. sometimes, boiling liquids removes the oxygen. We want as much oxygen as we can, to allow the yeast to do it's stuff.
This wort is now more or less finished, in terms of ingredients. only dry hopping or the addition of yeast is left to do.
This is when we take an initial gravity reading.
The gravity of the liquid is more or less a measure of it's density.
We use a special device (hydrometer) which is just a graduated tube which sinks into a measure of the liquid beer. The rod/instrument will sink to different levels, depending on the density of the liquid. eg. Water has a specific gravity of more or less 1.0000. Adding anything to the water can increase the density and so the reading rises and the instrument floats, slightly. This is basically why we can float, in the Dead Sea. The salt solution is so dense that we pop up to the surface like corks. Big fat, sunburned, rich, touristy corks.
As you can see, the initial gravity or Original Gravity (O.G.) reading is about 1.052
Comparing this to the final gravity gives us a measure of how much material has been converted by the yeast to alcohol. This in turn tells us the alcohol content of the beer.

Now we need more oxygen in the beer, if the yeast is to stand a good chance.
To get even more oxygen in there, we can shake the container or use an air pump. BeerinJapan uses a fish tank aquarium air pump to oxygenate his beer.

Here it is, being modelled:Silent air. That name made me laugh (and carefully sniff test the air).
Here is the air being pumped into the beer, oxygenating it in the process.

The beer is all nice and bubbly. Now is the time when BeerinJapan dry hops his beer. Another way to add aroma and a little extra flavour is to add hops after the boil is finished and directly into the fermenter. For normal dry hopping, it is usually better to wait until the primary fermentation has finished. Then the lovely flavors and aromas of the hops aren't evaporated away by the action of the fermenting young beer.
Don't forget that yeast!
The wee yeasties have awoken and are raring to go!
We add the yeast and then put the top on the fermentor.
The airlock is in place and now it is time to leave it alone for a few weeks.


Now, it's time to sit back and get pisshhhhd!!!!
BrewedinJapan opened up a Stone 13th Anniversary ale - nice!

Then he gave us some gorgeous brisket!

Plus home made potato salad. This guy is a great cook!
We had a few more quality brews, courtesy of us all. Good times!
Man, great food!
Great food, great beer.
It was then watch BrewedinJapan clean up, then off to Thrashzone for more quality booze!
BrewedinJapan, BeerKat, it was a pleasure to lose my brewing virginity with you guys.

This adventure was only the start...

p.s. want to know how that beer we bottled turned out?

Just lovely!