Supper Club - 2011 Winter Edition Brewer's Notes

The beer that we chose to showcase for our first supper club was our porter. Checking in at a sessional (by IMBC standards) 6% ABV, this beer is refreshingly smooth with the subtle complexity that you'd expect from a porter. The combination of crystal, chocolate and a hint of black malts, creates a slight nutty flavor that we felt would pair well with the smokiness of the bacon. The slight chocolate undertones paired beautifully with the dessert and helped with the overall smooth/creamy finish.

Future supper clubs will feature a wider variety of IMBC beers to pair with each course, but we wanted to keep things simple for this one.

Also, keep an eye out for our barrel aged version of our porter in the next month or so. Our basic porter aged in bourbon soaked oak and vanilla beans. And other exciting new developments in the coming year!

Supper Club - 2011 Winter Edition

The first ever IMBC Supper Club happened this past weekend. Hosted at my apartment in Long Beach. We invited a few friends to experience a beer and food paring around IMBC brews.

We created this supper club to introduce IMBC brews to the masses in a medium that all people love. FOOD! We tried to prepare food that would pair well with the brew of choice. This edition centered on our Porter.

With the roasted, smooth flavor, and heavy body of the Porter I decided to add bacon to each dish. From the bacon wrapped dates in the starter to the candied bacon topping on the dessert each dish paired well with the Porter. The fan favorite of the night was the dessert, chocolate cookie cups with vanilla ice cream and topped with candied bacon.

If you missed out on this edition, don't stress. We're doing this each season with different brews. From San Diego to LA, and possibly the Bay Area we're bringing IMBC to you.

Mystery Wedding Beer Revealed!

The mystery wedding brew is a Belgium Tripel weighing in at a dangerous 11% ABV. Scott kept an ear out on what was one of my favorite styles and he nailed it. Flavor profile was definitely on point. Yeasty, light bodied, and finishing with some citrus notes. Carbonation was lacking but it ain't no thang. It'll come with the aging. Not as good Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde, but definitely a good brew.

IMBC Oktoberfest

This past weekend we had an IMBC Oktoberfest at the house. There were lots of brats and a few German styled IMBC beers that were enjoyed by the liter. The main beers were our Oktoberfest Lager and our Munich Helles Lager. Both were a big hit among the family and friends, and friends of friends that showed up. Less available, but still enjoyed, was our Kolsch. We only had a limited amount of bottles of this one available, so it was kept aside for a few special people. Turn out was good, beer was good, food was good, overall, a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon with good friends. Oh, and did I mention we killed over 10 gallons of beer...not to mention two 30 packs and an 18 pack for the beer pong players. Good times indeed.

IMBC Pint Glasses

Made few more for friends and family.

They're sans text in the ring because it wouldn't come out right in decal form. If I had them screened onto the glass it would be better. But for small batches of glasses decals are the way to go.

Philly Beer Week

Via Adrian.

Philly Beer Week can't come any faster. Some of the goodness waiting for us next week on top of the ridiculous amounts of events within stumbling distance. T-minus 6 days.

Mystery Wedding Beer

So as previously noted, one of the IMBC crew is getting married later this year. So, of course, a wedding beer is mandatory. I decided on the style, based loosely on previous conversations with him. I can't say yet what it is exactly, but it will be good. Real good. I brewed it this past weekend and everything turned out exactly as planned. So while I can't say exactly what it is yet, I can say that with nearly 20lbs of grain and 2.5 lbs of adjunct sugars in a 5 gallon batch, an original gravity of close to 1.100, and an expected final gravity under 1.010, this will be a very big beer.

Fermentation should finish up in the next week or so, then it's off to age and condition for a few months. Really looking forward to this one.

Stone's 2011 Homebrew Competition Part 2

This competition was set up a bit differently than others. Rather than being judged by BJCP certified judges and entered by category, the beers were judged by attendees of the rally, with the top 5 vote getters moving on to be tasted by a panel of Stone judges that included Head Brewer Mitch Steele and Owner Greg Koch. Making the top five among 40 beers being judged by over 350 of our peers, is really what makes this victory stand out for us, and lets us know we are doing something right. Thanks again to the crew for your support!

Stone's 2011 Homebrew Competition

On Saturday, March 12th the crew went to Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, CA to support IMBC. We entered Stone's 3rd homebrew competition. The winner of the competition would have their recipe brewed and distributed by Stone. THIS IS HUGE. So we entered what we felt would win the whole thing. Which was Blackout a dark strong ale with vanilla bean.

After sampling other homebrews we felt confident we could win this thing. Even though there were some bad brews, some really strong brews stood out. Citra Smash and Hop-Fu were other crowd favorites.

We came away with a 3rd place finish. Out of 40 beers this is a huge win for us. We were a little heartbroken for not winning it all, but a 3rd place finish at a competition of this level is nothing to be sad about. At the end of the day we were all smiles, couldn't be more proud of our Brew Master, Scott, and finished off the night with some Blackout floats and Bacon Explosion burgers.

#winning

See more photos on my Flickr.

Pale Ale Greatness

I recently had an engagement party and IMBC had to be represented. Scott and I voted that the pale ale would be the most palatable, due to the other brews on tap being high on the ABV side. Plus, this pale ale is pure win. We got some great feedback from my family and friends. Some even asked where they could buy some.

In due time.

Side note, I'm hoping the RIPA we brewed couple weeks back is even better than the pale. Smoother, more flavor and a higher ABV.

New Year New Brew

With the new year brings a new recipe to brew. We decided to try and brew a Rye IPA. Alpine's Nelson is a superb example of this. A beer with the complexities of an IPA but with the drinkability of a pale. Depending on the ABV this would make a great session beer (which I doubt because we are shooting for a fairly high ABV). In about 8 weeks, it'll be ready for consumption. EXCITED!

Enjoy more photos on my Flickr.