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Off to Belgium - Delirium Café

We left Berlin behind and flew over to Brussels and then took a train to Bruges, where I was completely blown away by how integrated beer culture is.  Beer is unavoidable in this town, more pubs hosting more delicious beers than you could shake a stick at.  Oktoberfest was wonderful, yes, liters of delicious lagers.. but Delirium Café, colloquially referred to as “The Beer Cave”, in Bruges literally holds the Guinness World Record for most beers available at a bar -  standing at 2,004 different brands in January 2004.

If that metric isn’t good enough for you, the bottom-most picture, the one with the Delirium elephant on it, yeah that’s a 2L glass. 29EU.  So you can take your Maß and suck it.

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Stone Brewing Berlin (Part 2)

The food was really quite good - Stone of Escondido is quite famous for it’s “farm to table” style, where produce is harvested from their local farm, and Stone of Berlin continues that mindset.  Portions are significantly larger than in San Diego, the chefs proclaimed they needed to bump up portions to satiate the German appetite and plate price.

When my drink order was being taken I asked for an initial flight of all IPAs brewed on the premises - the waiter, slightly worried by my selection, informed me I had only selected IPAs to drink.  I nodded in agreement, he has heard correctly.  I was then told that these beers were extremely bitter and that I would probably not like them, especially not an entire flight.

This is the Stone culture, I explained, these are delicious, bright, hoppy beers, and I wouldn’t be trying the best of Stone Berlin if I were to drink anything else.

The brews were brilliant, especially the two Berlin exclusive IPAs - I did diverge from my IPA quest to have a Berlin-brewed Xocoveza.. which I have to say was identical to the San Diegan counterpart.

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Stone Brewing Berlin (Part 1)

After enjoying Oktoberfest we took a train up north to Berlin!  Aside from all of the history Berlin has to offer is a new American influence from San Diego.. STONE BREWING!

Propped up in an old gasworks building, primarily used in the 1940′s, Stone Brewing has breathed new life into the surrounding area.  Boasting massive interior seating, patrons find handcrafted wooden tables between saplings and fallen trees.

Exterior seating is also quite massive!

Barbacks prepping for the night

Second story view of the interior

Brewery on display for all to see

The menu as of October ‘16

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Ein Bier Wie Bayern!

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:O

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Food of the fest!

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Oktoberfest - Overall Experience

Visiting Munich to attend Oktoberfest is an experience that is unlike any other.. the German culture, food, beer, and people are all wonderful.  I wasn’t sure if my wife would enjoy Oktoberfest, certainly not as much as I would, but she enjoyed it so much we’ve already talked about planning future trips (with children!).  You have to wear traditional clothing, lederhosen and dirndls, you have to have a maß or beer and a schweinshaxe (pork knuckle).

If you’re planning on visiting as a group of 2-4, it’s not too difficult to find seats if you either arrive early, or visit on off-days (mon-thurs).  If you’re going as a massive group, 10+, you NEED table reservations long in advance (we were on lists as late as July, though we were waitlisted for a few weeks.

Meet new people, sing the drinkings songs, learn more about the German culture, and the history of the fest.. and, of course, have a damn good time.

Until next time München.. eins, zwei, drei, g’suffa!

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Oktoberfest - The Tents (Night)

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Inside The Tents!

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Oktoberfest - The Tents (Day)

There are 14 beer tents at Oktoberfest, I ended up taking pictures of 7, though these are some of the most notorious ones.  Tents are massive and seat thousands of people, the largest tents may seat 10,000 or 15,000 people!

Each tent touts its favorite beer and unique atmosphere, some tents are better for families, some for tourists, athletes, celebrities, etc.  Lowenbrau, for instance, has the support of the local soccer team that shares the same mascot, a lion.  The massive lion poses outside of the tent with a mass of beer, if you stick around long enough you’ll see him raise the glass to his lips.

One of the most infamous tents is Hacker-Pschorr, which is also referred to as “Beer Heaven”, or more accurately, “The Heaven of the Bavarians”.  You’ll know where you are by the blue ceilings dotted with white clouds.

Finally, Augustiner.. which is a favorite to locals.. some say this is the only real beer at the fest, and I left with this anecdote:

After work, all the brew masters from the Munich breweries sit together in a pub. Needless to say, each brewer orders beer from his own brand, i.e. the Löwenbräu guy orders Löwenbräu, the Hacker-Pschorr guy orders Hacker-Pschorr, and so on. Last one to go is the Augustiner guy. He orders a Coke. Everybody is stunned, asking - "Why?" - "Well", he finally says with a wide grin, "if you are not ordering any beers, then I won't, too."

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Otktoberfest - Intro: The Fairgrounds

Outside of the beer tents of Oktoberfest there’s loads of stuff to do and see, whether you don’t have reserved seats inside the tents, you’re in between tent drinking sessions, or you just need a breath of fresh air.

2016′s Oktoberfest was one of the lowest in attendance, a mere 5.5 MILLION people attended (down 300K from 2015).  This might have been to our benefit as we waltzed into any tent we wanted to and never had an issue with lines, being denied entry, or getting in and out of bathrooms.  [Sidenote: bathrooms of the fest are legitimately nice.]

Loads of rides and games outside of the tents, I have no clue what this translates to, so I’ll assume “Fart Hole”

Massive carousel, didn’t look so appealing after 3 maß!

Totally packed.. and they said attendance was up last year??

Loads of great food places.. veal/ox sandwiches, bratwurst, chips.. pork shank, dumplings.. delicious food, way better than American fried fair food.

Most of the tents moved, this sausage was dancing around with the teapot and cups, sure, why not.

Here’s a map of the 2016 experience, the 2017 map is already up as these guys plan fests 1 year in advance, most large groups book up their seats at this time, if you’re planning on going with a large group you should be planning now.

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I’M BACK

Due to some life-changing events, more on that later, and some travel abroad, I took a slight... 3-month... break from the site.  I have a massive backlog of posts that I’ll be releasing until I’m all caught up.

Things to look forward to:

Oktoberfest 2016 and Munich

Stone Berlin Brewing & Bistro and Berlin

Pubs and Eateries of Brussels

Brouwerij De Halve Maan in Bruges

(Loads of posts on Belgium TBH)

The Best Belgian Beer IN THE WORLD

NO posts on beer in France (sorry France)

What happened to my Märzen brew... (???)

First Brew Day of 2017

A Life-Changing Event!

Stay tuned.. for now here’s a picture of Oktoberfest 2016!

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Fermenting: Märzen Decoction (Secondary Part 1)

I haven’t really described what’s going on when I move my beers from primary to secondary fermentation.. and to some it might look like I’ve skipped a step in the pictures above, so I’ll outline the process now.

I’ve connected a CO2 line to my carboy cap, I’ve also shoved a j-tube (part of the siphon with the ‘L’ bend in it) through the other inlet on the carboy cap.  Here I’m turning on the CO2.

The small amount of pressure from the CO2 pushes into the carboy used in primary fermentation  The black tubing has CO2, the clear tubing has beer.  This employs the same basic physics as a keg.

Siphoning begins, from here it’s 100% gravity pulling the beer from the primary carboy into the secondary.

Secondary carboy is nice and bubbly from the starsan.  I blasted the secondary carboy with CO2 as well as the beer line and even headspace of the primary.

Siphoning progress, almost done...

Siphoning complete, left behind is the trub; yeast and hop material that I don’t want in the secondary.

I’ll probably post more pictures of the secondary, the beer will sit in secondary for 3-4 weeks befire I fine it with gelatin - something I’ve never tried before!

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What am I Drinking? Tonight I had Sweetwater's 420fest, a deliciously malty IPA. Truth be told, I definitely didn't enjoy this the way Sweetwater would have wanted me to - well over a year after it was produced, though it stayed in a cool dark closet the entire time. I received this beer in a trade along with some other great brews, I think I sent over some hard to find brews by Ballast Point and Lost Abbey. Appearance was golden and murky, a hallmark of the East coast IPA, with excellent head retention. Smell.. fruity and sweet, unique hop aroma, the bottle does say "experimental hops", no clue was I was in for. Taste was sticky and sweet, huge malt backbone with sweet hop flavor, not citrusy or piney, almost belgian.. it's like a Belgian IPA, if that's even possible. Not bitter, great mouthfeel, really "Belgian IPA" man, I'm not a scientist, but this is what it is. Overall I'd give it a 4.5/5, haven't been to Georgia since last year truly miss many of the breweries out there, Sweetwater is definitely one of them. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/273/166793/

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Fermenting: Märzen Decoction (Primary Part 3)

Fermentation is just about complete, finalizing it with a diacetyl rest - popular followup questions include, what is diacetyl, and what does the “rest” do?

What is diacetyl?  In short, diacetyl is a byproduct of fermentation that gives beer a buttery off-flavor.  Causes include high fermentation temperature and poor initial wort aeration. (Check out all off-flavors here!)

What does the “rest” do? As diacetyl is produced by yeast, it is reduced.  Once the yeast finishes production it enters a stationary period, then then consume the diacetyl, and reduce it - this happens faster at a higher temperature.  Since ales ferment at a higher temperature, they need a far shorter rest than a lager.  Since I’m brewing a Märzen, I must raise the fermentation chamber to ~70F, diacetyl levels will regulate within a few days.

I’ve got the temperature dialed in to 70F, my carboy says it’s moving on up and is about 68F now.

Stay tuned, moving to the secondary on Wednesday!

Sources:

White Labs - Diacetyl Time Line

Homebrewing.com - Off Flavors/Off-Flavor Wheel

HomeBrewTalk -  My First Lager - When to Start Diacetyl Rest?

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Fermenting: Märzen Decoction (Primary Part 2)

Looking good, this took a full 48 hours before the krausen formed.. I would have panicked if the White Labs website hadn’t already prepared me for the long lag time!

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Fermenting: Märzen Decoction (Primary Part 1)

24 hours later, this brew is dialed into a fermentation temperature of 50F, it will ferment for at least 2 weeks, then lager for at least 4 weeks.  Will post updates as time goes on.

Note: After reading the Characteristics sheet from the White Labs website, I’m adjusting the fermentation temperature to 55F. http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp820-oktoberfest-m-rzen-lager-yeast