Rumpkin: A beer worthy of its pumpkin name

In the spirit of Halloween, my awesome girlfriend went out and got us a bottle of Rumpkin by Boulder's own Avery Brewing Co. It set her back about $15 for one 12 oz bottle of the pumpkin ale, which may sound like a lot, but I would say it was definitely worth the amount to try out this unique creation. They only brewed 512 cases of this beer and it was only bottled on October 6th, so it was fresh off the line. From what I heard, there was a two hour long line at Liquor Mart the day it was put on the shelves, and you could only get one bottle!

Instead of selling a syrupy beer with off-putting, artificial-tasting pumpkin flavors, Avery really created something special and unique that sets itself apart from the rest. As hinted by the name, Rumpkin is aged in rum barrels which really adds impressive traits to everything from smell to color to taste. I popped it open and put my nose over the bottle and instantly got a strong rum smell, which isn't usually something I get excited about in a beer, but this one was different. When poured into the glass, it had a warm amber color (more on the orange side than the red) and a very small head that disappeared not long after the pour. Like I said, the nose had blatant rum qualities, but once in the glass you could really smell the spices and the real pumpkin.

The taste is what really sealed the deal. Even though I was expecting something with an overpowering rum flavor, what I got was a delicious pumpkin beer with malty and caramel flavors, a product of its aging in an oak rum barrel. That being said, it still had a strong alcohol flavor, but not a harsh one that lingered in the back of your throat. After all this beer has a whopping 15.9% ABV, so it is going to have that alcohol taste.

I would absolutely urge people to go out and try this. It is definitely something two or three people can split and sip on since Rumpkin drinks more as a fine liquor than a keystone light.

UPDATE: Homebrew #1: Foreign Extra Stout

So I tested the gravity of the Foreign Extra Stout on 10/23 to see how things were going. The kit's recipe said to test it after 7-10 days, which would have been when I transferred to secondary (but I didn't), but I took it a few days late and the gravity reading ended up being at the final gravity (1.014). So everything seems to be going swimmingly.

I also ended up moving the bucket from the basement barthroom to my bedroom since it's starting to get cold out here in Colorado. The ambient temperature was around 59 degrees for a few days, and the yeast was supposed to be fermenting between 62-72 degrees. If the temperatures are too cold for the type of  yeast I am using, than they basically go to sleep and do not complete the primary fermentation stage. I'm sure fermenting at 59 degrees was probably still okay, since the temperatures within the fermenting wort are sometimes up to 10 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature because of more yeast activity, but it is only going to get colder out here so I decided just to move them. So now the Foreign Extra Stout and Red Ale are in my room sitting at about 65 degrees.

Only a few more days until bottling!

Homebrew #2: Red Ale

*I am new to this blogging thing and am trying to figure out the best way to record all this information in an interesting and concise way. So, I'm going to try out different formats and things to see what works best*

I really love red ales. It started with Sam Adams Irish Red and evolved from there into a infatuation of searching for new and interesting reds to try. For this second homebrew I really wanted to make something along the lines of my favorite reds (Pursuit of Hoppiness, Hop Head Red, Jamaican Red), which tend to be a little hoppier then traditional dry, Irish reds. That being said, I still decided to go to Hop To It! and use one of their recipes, since I am still learning and don't feel ready to make my own recipes yet (but I did use about 1/2 lb more malt, since that is supposed to help increase ABV). So I spent another ~$40 and came out with ingridients for what was described to me as, more or less, a traditional Irish red.

Ingredients:
-6.5 lbs Light liquid malt extract (I used 7 lbs)

-Specialty Grains
        -6 oz CaraRed Malt
        -6 oz Medium Crystal 
        -4 oz Extra Dark Crystal Malt
        -2 oz Roasted Barley

-2 oz U.S. Kent Goldings hops

-Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

Again, I followed the procedure fairly closely, but I tweaked the water volumes because the closer to 5 gallons your boil is, the better it will turn out (from what I've been reading online and in recipe books). Also, I only started  with 1.5 gallons on the Homebrew #1 (Foreign Extra Stout) and it was not enough water to cover the whole steeping bag, so I wanted to make sure I had at least enough to submerge the specialty grains.

Procedure:
-Heat 3.5 gallons to 160 degrees
-At 160 degrees, remove from heat and steep specialty grains

We tied the steeping bag to the spoon with fishing line so the bag wasn't
 sitting on the bottom of the pot. I'm not sure how necessary this is, but I didn't
want the speciality grains to be burning against the bottom of the hot pot

-After 30 minutes, remove speciality grains and let drip dry
-Add extract

-Once extract is dissolved, bring volume to about 4.5 gallons
-Return to heat and bring to boil
-Add 1 1/2 oz U.S. Kent Golding hops and boil for 50 minutes
-Add 1 1/2 oz U.S Kent Golding hops and boil for 10 minutes
     *five minutes into the boil, I added the SuperMoss

Total Boil Time = 60 minutes

Post Boil:
-Cool wort down below 80 degrees

Wort being chilled via wort chiller

-Aerate
-Take gravity reading

The glass instrument sticking out of the top is the
hydrometer, which is used to measure gravity. We  were right on
the money with the target starting gravity of 1.051

-Pitch yeast (Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale)

Quick Notes:
Brew Date: 10/20/2011
Starting Gravity: 1.051 (which was what the recipe set the target at)
Target Final Gravity: 1.013
Target ABV: 5% (but I'm hoping a little higher since I used a bit more extract)

And that is it. I don't feel like I need to add every little detail of brewing since each post would be more or less the same, but if their are questions or confusions, just post comments and next time I will address them.

Oh! And I wanted to point out a near disaster Chris and I had. We use a propane burner while brewing since our electric range isn't strong enough, and I assumed 1 tank could do 2 brews, but boy was I wrong. When trying to bring the wort to a boil (at 4.5 gallons), it plateaued at 199-201 degrees for about an hour and half and showed no signs of going up. I thought it was the burner messing up, but Chris was smart enough to realize that we didn't have enough propane. So I ran out to a gas station I knew sold propane at 11pm and bought a tank right before they closed. Had I not been able to get more propane, this whole batch would have been a throwaway. (I'm not sure what effect a super long and slow rise to boil has on beer. Hopefully nothing negative!) Lesson Learned: Make sure your propane tank is full, and maybe even have an extra one on hand!

Homebrew #1: Foreign Extra Stout

*Before I jump into my first homebrew, let it be known that I decided to seriously make this blog after this batch, so this post might be a little bare compared to posts to come in regards to pictures. It might also be a bit longer and more detailed then ones to come since it is the first*

If I were to bet a few weeks ago on what style of beer I would have attempted to brew first, I would probably have put my money on an Indian Pale Ale or Red Ale. However, after going to Great American Beer Fest in Denver, I got a mean case of the "stout bug." Copper Kettle Brewing Co. out of Denver took gold in the Herb and Spice Category with their Mexican Chocolate Stout, which was easily one of my favorite samples of the day. It was a heavy stout that had a noticeable thick, chocolate flavor, but the kicker was a spicy after taste that would linger in the back of your throat and burn up through your nose because of chilies that were added during brewing. This more or less sealed the deal that I wanted to brew a stout.

So I went to Hop To It and bought their recipe kit for a foreign extra stout for about $40. The kit came with 8 lbs of Amber liquid malt extract, specialty grains (1 lb Roasted barley, 6 oz Black Patent malt, 4 oz Chocolate Malt), 1 oz Challenger hops, 1 oz Styrian golding hops, 5 oz of corn sugar (not used until bottling day), and yeast (Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale). From the smell of the grains it seems like it should have slight chocolate and maybe even coffee flavors.

On brew day (10/11/2011), I more or less followed the recipe to the tee. (However, instead of using the Irish Moss it recommends, I got some SuperMoss, which is basically a concentrated form of Irish Moss):
-Bring 1.5 gallons of water to 160°
-Once at 160°, remove pot from heat and steep specialty grains for 30 minutes
-Take grains out and let drip dry. Add the 8 lbs of extract.
-Once the extract is dissolved, bring water volume up to about 4 gallons and return to heat.
-Bring wort (the word for unfermented beer) to a boil. Add 1 oz Challenger hops and boil for 45 minutes.
-Add 1/2 oz Sterling Golding hops. Boil for 5 Minutes. (*This is where the recipe says to add the Irish Moss, so the timings are a little different from here on out compared to the kit recipe)
-Add Super Moss. Boil for 5 minutes. (The SuperMoss is prepared by taking 4oz of the wort and cooling it in a sterile glass jar. Once it is cooled you add a little less than 1/4 tsp of SuperMoss and shake vigorously. Then it's ready to go)
-Add 1/2 oz Sterling Golding hops. Boil For 5 minutes

*Total boil time = 60 minutes

Once the boil is over, it is important to cool the wort down to below 80° as quickly as possible. Because the book I read stressed the importance of a fast chill, I bought a wort chiller (~$65) in order to easily cool beer down as fast as I could. Wort chillers are a spiral of copper tubing with hose adapters at the end. You hook the hose up and run cold water through the copper coil. You stick the coil in the pot and run the water through (with the excess coming out another tube which we had going outside). We got it to about 70° in, I would guess, under 10 minutes.

Side note: Chris and I had a little scare when using the wort chiller. The hose adapter wasn't screwed on tightly and when we turned the hose on, water was spraying out of the chiller. If this water were to get in our beer it could ruin everything since their could be contaminants that would prevent the yeast from doing their jobs. Luckily we didnt get any water in the pot, so everything should be fine. Lesson learned: Run some water through your chiller to make sure their aren't any leaks that could lay waste to a pot full of hard work (and money).

Once the wort is cooled below 80° we topped it off to 5 gallons and then dumped it back and forth between the fermenting bucket and the pot in order to aerate it. This is the only time you want the wort to be aerated from here on out. At this point, it is critical to aerate the wort in order for the yeast to survive.

After the wort is sufficiently aerated, it is dumped in the fermenter. We took a sample in order to test the gravity (we nailed the target starting gravity at 1.055), and then added the yeast to the wort. Last thing to do was put the lid on, plug the hole with the airlock, and put it somewhere to ferment at 62°-72°.

And that's it. In 7-10 days it says to transfer wort into a secondary fermenter, but I am just going to keep it in the primary fermenter, since from what I read it is not entirely necessary to use a secondary for this recipe. But I will take a gravity reading at about 10 days to see how things are going.

Since I am writing this after brew day, I can also note in this post that the airlock started bubbling after about 6 hours and was bubbling rapidly at about 12 hours. The bubbling in the airlock is a good sign that the yeast is at work.

So that is it. My first beer, a stout, is fermenting (at about 61°, a little low) in a 5 gallon bucket in my room. I will update at the next gravity reading!

The only picture I got. This is the tube I put the sample in to test.
The hydrometer (which measures the gravity) isn't in there though

And it begins...

So I did it. I started my very own blog. I've been thinking about it for a while and decided why the hell not? I'm not really expecting hundreds, or even tens, of people to read my blog, but I am using this as more of a way to chronicle my journeys into homebrewing. I will primarily be sharing all the beers I will be brewing by posting recipes, procedures, and pictures from brew day(s), but I will also use this as place to highlight some of my favorite beers/breweries/pubs and other things like helpful resources (books, forums, web sites, etc).

So welcome to those lucky few who get to be here from the beginning (Mom and Dad), and come back often to see what is new. I am going to try and brew a new beer around every two weeks, so there should be plenty of super exciting stuff to post about regularly. 

Until then, have a beer for me, and I will have a beer for you...