Tag Archives: brew

Living Proof Black Rum Stout is ready for Balticon

May 19, 2010 by JohnTaylorWilliams · Leave a comment

Thomas and I made a special home brew to bring with us to Balticon this coming Memorial Day weekend. We are calling it Living Proof Black Rum Stout and will gladly share it at our “Home Brewers and Aficionados Meet Up” currently scheduled for Sunday May 30th from 10 PM until Midnight at an undisclosed location at or near the Baltimore Marriott Hunt Valley Inn.

The rules of our meet up are as follows: You must be 21 or older and carrying a valid ID or Driver’s License, You must bring at least a few bottles of your home brewed beer – If you are not a home brewer as of yet, then you must bring some samples of a beer that you adore…. Lastly, you must bring a story to accompany your beer – sort of an ode to what you were aiming for, or what it inspires you to strive for.

That’s it! We call our first meet up BYOBS (short for “Bring Your Own Beer and Story) and invite you to contact us for further details.

Grain Build for 5 Gallons of Living Proof Black Rum Stout (Extract plus Grains):

1.33 lbs. Crystal Malt (until 170 degrees F)
2 lbs. Black Patten Malt (until 170 degrees F)
6 lbs. Amber Dry Malt Extract (at boil)
2 lbs. Black Strap Molasses (at boil)
1 oz. Willamette (at 90 minutes)
1 oz. Willamette (at 60 minutes)
2 oz. Styrian (at 30 minutes)
1 tsp. crushed Cardamon (at 10 minutes)
.5 tsp. crushed Allspice (at 10 minutes)
Wyeast #1098 Brit Ale II (once cooled to 68 degree F)

- Set Aside Mason Jar Containing:
1 tsp. crushed Cardamon
.5 tsp. crushed Allspice
2 Tsp. Organic Vanilla Extract
.5 cup of Dark Rum

- At Bottling Add:
Strained contents of Mason Jar
5/8′s cup of Organic Sugar (for Priming)
- After a few weeks, drink with friends!!

Slainte!, JTW

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Two New Beers to Try

March 6, 2010 by Thomas · Leave a comment

We are entertaining company later today. As is my habit, I stopped by the local beer and wine store, a Maryland fixture even in the beer inhospitable county in which I live. This beer and wine, just a few minutes from my house, has a very eager owner who does his level best to work with the weird distribution system here in the county to stock the best micro and craft brewed beers he can acquire. I am increasingly pleased with his success as it is making the variety of beers to sample wider and easier for me to access.

Heavy Seas Siren NoireToday I picked up two brews to try.

The first is from Heavy Seas, formerly Clipper City, a home state brewery up in Baltimore. They have been producing a curious series of expressions, mostly new recipes, and bottling them in 22oz bombers. The series also bears the appropriately piratical name, the Mutiny Fleet.

The beer I grabbed is Siren Noire. From their web site:

An English style imperial stout, fermented and flavored with imported Belgian chocolate nibs. Smooth and easy drinking. Named for the Sirens who lured seafarers off course and ultimately to their demise.

I have enjoyed every Heavy Seas brew I’ve tried. This will be my first from the Mutiny Fleet and it looks like there are many more worth trying, both re-bottlings of old favorites and tempting new ones.

The other beer is not a brewery I had ever seen before. Meantime Brewing is a London brewery, I had no idea when I spotted the bottle in the cold case. The distinctive champagne style bottle and cork caught my attention as well as the subdued but classic label. The story related on the label for their London Porter piqued my curiosity even further.

George Washington was a big fan of imported English Porter, By 1769 he’d lost his taste for British beer. After all, it was keeping the Redcoats fighting. Our Porter is based on a recipe from 1750. We bring you the original aromas and flavours of the beer that made London the world’s brewing capital, flavours we know George Washington would have loved.

Meantime London PorterThere is a staggering wealth of information about the brewery and the beer at their web site. I am a huge fan of the style so very much looking forward to trying this one. The store also had their IPA in the cold case so there is more to try if this one turns out agreeable.

I’ll post tasting notes after I’ve had each. I suspect either or both may make their way into the brew cast at some point, too. I could easily see doing a couple of the Mutiny Fleets for an episode highlighting Heavy Seas and both of the Meantime beers that are available as a London themed episode.

There is so much good beer and only so many hours in the day to share them.

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Beer Hunter Movie Trailer

February 11, 2010 by Thomas · Leave a comment

I have owned a copy of Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch, 4th Edition, for some time. I don’t consult it anywhere as often as I should, considering single malt is one of my other passions. Still, I have some sense of Jackson’s contribution to making single malts more accessible.

More recently, I am learning that Jackson has also been a pivotal figure in craft brewing. So much so that there is a film documenting his work in this regard. Thanks to Dr. John Cmar at the Gustatory Libation Front for posting information and the trailer. Hopefully the film will be available for purchase after its premiere this Fall.

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Brewing Powered Civilization

January 26, 2010 by Thomas · Leave a comment

This theory actually isn’t all that novel, that the accidental discovery of fermentation had a direct impact of the pursuit of agriculture and many farther reaching aspects of civilization. Xeni at Boing Boing shares a link to a story that suggests this critical event happened earlier than previously suspected.

A secure supply of alcohol appears to have been part of the human community’s basic requirements much earlier than was long believed. As early as around 9,000 years ago, long before the invention of the wheel, inhabitants of the Neolithic village Jiahu in China were brewing a type of mead with an alcohol content of 10 percent, McGovern discovered recently.

Brewing before even the wheel, imagine that. That delights both my passion for brewing and my hacker nature. Maybe, and this is just me thinking out loud here, we first invented the wheel to make transporting our brews easier for the sharing.

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Open Source and Beer

January 21, 2010 by Thomas · Leave a comment

One of my other passions, one for which I am better known, is open source and free software. Color me tickled to see a post on SourceForge about open source software specifically for home brewers and beer enthusiasts. I especially like that much of the focus in this article is on sharing information, information about beer.

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Why Brew Cast, not Beer Cast?

January 5, 2010 by Thomas · 3 Comments

I will be honest, the choice of brew cast as part of the domain name was serendipity.  There are any number of sites using the name Living Proof; for all the popular top-level domains, “livingproof” was taken.  Adding “podcast” resulted in a domain name that was also taken.  It also occurred to me as I frantically tried to think of an alternative, that “livingproofpodcast” didn’t say much about what John and I are setting out to do, anyway.

As we’ve been enthusiastically brain storming, coordinating and planning for our first episodes, number one of which is tentatively slated for March, the lucky coincidence of my alternate name became apparent.  Using the term “brew cast” is more encompassing and offers far more opportunities than just “beer cast”.

First, it allows us to produce segments on any kind of brewed beverage, which happens to allow me to speak to my past pursuit of brewing mead.  It also lets the both of us stretch beyond the kinds of things we’ve brewed past and present to explore all kinds of interesting things.  As John put it, brew speaks to anything that uses yeast or a similar organism to metabolize any kind of sugar or sugars and uses adjuncts to balance the flavor or preserve the result.

Second, brew is a verb so we can include the practice, art, craft and act of brewing.  At the start we already were agreed we’d pursue interviews and discussions with master brewers driving the thriving micro- and craft brew industry.  But since John is an active brewer and I am a lapsed brewer hopeful to be active again soon, we can also put together segments on all of the aspects of home brewing first hand.

Not surprisingly, the topics we’ve come up with so far are quite broad and hopefully generally appealing.  John and I both are as interested in the brewed product itself as the history and anthropology behind brewing, how it complements and interacts with food, and any number of tangents that spring forth from the core notion.  Personally, I was thrilled at one of his suggestions that would even let us do a family friendly segment.

I tend to think, and I doubt John would disagree, that the hallmark of a good idea is whether it has legs.  Just from our initial list, I think we easily have a year’s worth of content for a monthly, hour long show.  Most importantly, we’ve also come up with ideas that will encourage us to grow and share our growth, as brewers, aficionados, and beer mug philosophers.

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