2010 Magical Mystery Scavenger Hunt

On Saturday August 28^th the FH Steinbart Staff will be going on a Magical Mystery pub crawl.  We won’t tell you where we are going (this is a mystery pub crawl) and you can’t come on the crawl, but you can try and find us to win prizes. More than one pub crawl may happen, those multiple pub crawls may even split into even more pub crawls.  The hydra emerges from the shop at 3pm and will spread throughout the city.

The Scoop:

Our mystery crawl starts at 3pm and goes until we call it a night, your job is to find us at each stop.  We will be going mostly to local beer places (and maybe even a wine place or two).  Clues as to our location will be posted on Lisa Morrison’s radio show “Beer O’ Clock”, and through FH Steinbarts Twitter and Facebook account (find links to these on our website).

How you win stuff:

This is a scavenger hunt, and what, you might be asking are you hunting?  You are hunting for us (the Steinbart crew), follow the clues, win the prize. We may give out passwords that you have to say (we might even ask you to get on top of the bar and yell) to get a prize.  We will have a bunch of gift certificates as well as some larger prizes to give away.  The first one or two people to find us at each location will win one of these prizes.  However, everyone that finds us will receive a ticket for the grand prize give-away, a 10 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker Kettle ($309 Value)!

The Rules:

There are too many ways that you can cheat such as, trying to follow us when we leave a  location, texting your friends,  etc…

The rules are simple:

-Be honest and don’t be a jerk, if we feel like you are not following the spirit of the event, no prize.

-You can only win one prize, but you can win a raffle ticket for each location that you find us at.

-You must be old enough to enter the pub (sorry minors).

-We reserve the right to change these rules at any time.

Fresh Hops Are Coming!

It is late July and hop harvest is quickly approaching. Everyone in the shop is excited to see the 2010 harvest come in and to brew some wet hop beers. Many commercial examples of these beers are available in September and October and you have probably tried them. They are referred to as “wet hop”, “fresh hop”, or “harvest” ales. These beers have a unique grassy character and a smooth citrusy bitterness. Fresh hop beers are usually less bitter than their counterparts brewed with cured hops.

Fresh Hop beers are made with we un-dried wet hops. The hops brewers typically use are dehydrated immediately after harvest (usually within a few hours). Hop processors do this for good reason as wet hops have a tendency to “compost”, which does not make a beer taste very good. We only get one hop harvest a year here in North America and we need to dry out our hops so we can make tasty brews year round with them.

Brewing with Fresh Hops:

Fresh hops usually contain about 80-90% water by weight while tried hos are around 13-15% water by weight. This means that you want to use about 5 times as much by weight when using a wet hop. Some brewers like to use pellets or dried whole hops as a bittering hop and follow with wet hops during the last 25 or 30 minutes of the boil. This helps cut down on some of the grassier flavors you can get from using wet hops.

Wort loss to hops is greatly increased when using wet hops. If you use alot of them it is not uncommon to lose 30-40% of the wort to the hops. We don’t suggest using wet hops as a dry hop, as it takes a lot of agitation to release the aromatic compounds in the wet hops, and you will extract lots of chlorophyl.

We are currently taking pre-orders for wet hops here at the store. These hops are being overnighted from the grower to us and we suggest that you use them right away if you order. Mail order customers may want to opt for expedited shipping as we suggest you use these hops within 48 hours of harvest. You can order hops here: http://www.fhsteinbart.com/products/index.php?subgrp=FHP&subgrpdesc=Fresh%20(wet)%20Hops

Beer Headlines

There must be something in the air, or rather, in the beer here in Portland.  The brewing world is abuzz with a few big stories and we wanted to share them here with you.

Roots Brewing in SE Portland is no more:

Read the story at oregonlive.com

Founding Brewer of Bridgeport Brewing Co. Resigns:

Read the story at oregonlive.com

Rules Tightened for Oregon Homebrewers:

Watch the video at kptv.com

OLCC bans home brew outside the house

The OLCC has recently ruled on the legality of bringing home brew (beer or wine) out of the house. The ruling is you “you can’t”.  If you want to bring a case of your latest IPA to your buddies wedding… well legally speaking you aren’t really supposed to do that. If you want to bring a keg of Saison to your neighbors barbecue… yeah you can’t do that either.  If you want to bring some growlers on a camping trip… you guessed it. Currently in the state of Oregon you could be prosecuted with a Class A Misdemeanor for performing any of the aforementioned activities. This also means that homebrew cannot be served at homebrew club meetings or be judged in homebrew competitions. In fact, as the law stands it is not even legal to mail entries to home beer and wine competitions outside of the state.

It is important to remember that home brewers and wine makers are and have been integral to the craft beer and wine industry explosion in our state. This is a multi billion dollar industry and one of the few that is still growing in our current economic recession. Steinbart’s alone provides about a dozen jobs. Widmer Bros Brewing employs far more Oregonians and they started their craft as home brewers and founding members of a home brew club that can no longer serve home brew or host home brew competitions. We encourage you to write your state representatives and encourage them to modify this law.

Tips for warm weather fermentation

As we get into those hot summer days many brewers have trouble keeping there fermenters cool. While fermentation temperatures in the 80s will make great saison, they also make a pale ale taste like banana fruit salad especially if the temperature spikes during the first 3 or 4 days of fermentation. Here are a few ways to keep your fermenter cool during the summer.

Swamp Cooler:

Place your bucket or carboy in a water bath and place an old t-shirt around it. Put a fan on your carboy. Water will actually wick up the shirt and evaporate causing evaporative cooling. This should get you a 4-5 degree temperature drop. Works best when humidity is low.

Ice Bath:

Place your fermenter in a water bath and throw cold packs or jugs of ice in the water. Change out your cold packs or jugs 1-2 times a day.

Cold Box:

Make a cold box using a spare fridge or freezer and a Johnson controller (we sell these for about $65). The Johnson controller is really easy to install and gives you a dial setting for your temperature. This is the most reliable option but is also the most expensive. This can also be done with a window AC unit and an insulated box.

Keep Your Fermenters Full.

Cheers,

-FH Steinbart Co.