Witkap-Pater Abbey Singel & Colonel Blide's Cask Ale

Last night with dinner I had the Witkap-Pater Abbey Singel from Brouwerij Slaghmuylder, a small Belgian brewery. I didn't do full tasting notes, but the beer was decent--nothing particularly interesting about it. The carbonation was a little too high and left a sharp carbonic bite in my mouth. Other than that, this was your standard Abbey-style ale; nothing about it jumped out and made me want more. This one is definitely not a repeat.



Next up, with lunch today, I popped open one of the bottles in the variety pack from Cricket Hill that I got on Wednesday at their brewery. I pulled out their Colonel Blide's Cask Ale. If I didn't know the story behind this beer, I would've laughed at the fact that they were calling it a cask ale. For starters, it's bottled and it's not even bottle-conditioned at that. Basically, the beer began as a true cask ale a few years ago when they first made it, but it became so popular that they started bottling it and force-carbonating it for consistency. It also was originally a blend of their Hopnotic IPA and American Ale, but now they brew it as its own beer with its own recipe. It's very similar to their IPA, but with a fuller and more complex hop profile, mainly because the beer is dry-hopped after primary fermentation. All in all, a good, sessionable English IPA. As with the first beer on this post, it's nothing extraordinary, but it's well-made and tasty.

Seriously, Who Are You?

So I've been using a service called Site Meter to track visitors to my blog. It gives me all sorts of awesome information: where people are visiting from, what browsers they're using, what OS they're using, even their monitor resolution! Slightly Big Brother-esque, I know, but it's still sweet.

So, over the last few days, I've had visitors from IP addresses in locations where I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it'd be cool to know who you are. So, if I don't know you (and even if I do), take a minute to sign my Guestbook and tell me who you are! I've had visitors from France, the UK, New Zealand, and now Spain. Seriously, who are you???

Cricket Hill Brewing Company

Yesterday was one of the most awesome exBEERiences I've had yet (I've now coined 3 new words: beerkend, beervent, and exbeerience. Write those down; they'll be on the SATs one day). I took the day off from work and spent the day at the Cricket Hill Brewing Company in Fairfield, NJ. The owner of Cricket Hill, Rick Reed, and the head brewer, Dave Manka, were nice enough to invite me to brew a batch of beer with them, specifically their East Coast Lager, a crisp, easy-drinking, light lager with a faint, but wonderful hop profile.

I spent most of my time with Joe (can't remember his last name), the assistant brewer, who was in charge of brewing that day. He was a really great host and teacher, walking me through the process and comparing each step to what I would do at the homebrew level. I found that it's really not that different, except that instead of brewing 5 gallons, we brewed 465 gallons. Instead of using 14 pounds of grain, we used roughly 700 pounds. Instead of using a couple ounces of hops, we used nearly 7 pounds. If you've never seen or smelled 7 pounds of hops before, it's kind of like awesomeness with more awesome on top. Joe let me work some of the valves on the brewhouse throughout the day, and I got to add the hops throughout the boil (equally awesome to 7 pounds of hops, is adding those hops to 465 gallons of boiling wort). I also got the lucky job of cleaning the 700 lbs of grain out of the mash tun at the end. Though hard work, it was definitely a lot of fun...and it smelled real nice, sort of like victory.

Of course there was plenty of drinking to be done too. Over the course of the 8.5 hours I spent there, I sampled their East Coast Lager, Hopnotic IPA, Paymaster's Porter, and the yet-to-be-released Maibock (they're bottling it today actually). I left with a 12 bottle variety back that includes the East Coast Lager, American Ale, Hopnotic IPA, and their Colonel Blide's (a cask style ESB). The one thing I found interesting about their beers is that they were all incredibly smooth. They even mentioned to me that they're not your typical craft brewery making over-the-top "extreme" beers--they're aiming for drinkable session beers for your average beer drinker. I think the East Coast Lager in particular is a really great gateway beer to introduce BMC (Bud Miller Coors) drinkers to the world of craft brewing.

It was definitely a day to remember--thanks again to Rick, Dave, and Joe over at the Cricket Hill Brewing Company! I'll definitely be back to help you bottle one Thursday night!