Beer School was awesome again this event! Good job to all involved.
I wanted to kick off a thread that touches on some of the threads from the past few months about future schools...
Some things that would be awesome:
1. Can we have a vote on the next one? Or at least a suggestions page?
2. Can we rediscuss ways to make it interesting, like splitting it into two complimentary categories, or making it a competition, or etc.
3. Can we get an early role call for helpers and brewers for this?
4. Do want to do a "hardcore" experiment of somekind for a non-event night? By hardcore, I mean, like gallon batches of 1 recipe using different water additives. Etc.
Thanks!
One thing to keep in mind about the 'schools', is that they need to be informal and entertaining. A majority of the people attending our parties aren't brewers, so won't know what is being discussed and probably won't even have the level of interest as us. Due to the party atmosphere, I don't think many of the brewers have much interest in getting too technical either. That's why we've gone the route of coffee school, historical styles, or the Farmhouse sponsored hop school that showcased new hop strains.
Kris, I like the idea of having a more technical school with small batches as part of our post party line-up along with Brewing 101, etc.
We definitely want to have different members hosting a school for each party, but how do we decide who that will be?
Next party is May 7, so let's come up with something cool!
Yeah, I had my fun, so it's off to the next volunteer! I think James (Boollish) was interested in helping out as well.
Roger That Good Buddies...Kyle, job well done Sir! That was a great school!
@Kris the answer to all your questions is yes. I started a concurrent thread for the taking of suggestions and once enough roll in we can set up a poll and have a vote. I decided to set up a second thread and not just use this one because I felt this thread was going to be discussing more procedural things, more of a how do we want to do this, and the other thread is more what do we want to do, if that makes sense. The answer to question #2 is yes, make those suggestions in the other thread, the sky is the limit really, kind of...like Jeff mentioned for the big parties a delicate balance has to be struck, get too beer nerdy and people won't care, but we still want to teach what we love about beer, so if you have some new and interesting ways you think we can do that lets hear them. I mentioned in the other thread spring is traditionally Hop School time because a nice IPA is a refreshing way to celebrate spring, we can go in any direction, but I think a generally refreshing beer style/over arching theme would be nice, but we can put it up for a vote, I want to hear what those interested want to do. Also, I really like the idea of many small batches, I think there is a ton of value in that. Personally I would like to see that be a presention at monthly meeting, since that is beer nerd centric and we as beer nerds would appreciate it most and get the most value out of it. Start a seperate thread maybe, and see if you can round up a few fellow brewers and holler at Ken to get you in the agenda to speak at the next meeting, or whenever you would have it ready. That's my suggested course of action with that idea, although if you wanted to setup a table and feature that at Cerveza I'm sure we can work that out somehow, or you could just do a standalone class if you'd like, pick a time and talk to...I think Jim...to get it on the calender, we can advertise it on the facebook page and of course on our main page here and promote it for you. It's your idea, however you feel best to bring it in the world, just let us know and we'll help you do it, this is something I'd like to see more of, people forming classes/experiments on their area of interest. I've been meaning to do a history of beer class forever and just havent put it together yet myself...But yeah, think about how you want to present that idea, meeting presentation/cerveza table/stand alone class and I'll do everything I can to help you make that happen.
@ Jeff I think we decide who will host the next school, by collecting ideas/concepts, putting those up for a vote, and whomever's concept is chosen would be defacto leader of that school. Seems fair to me...
Whether or not this becomes a formal "school" or not, I want to get an ipa flight going of big dumb IPAs. Buy in would probably be $20 and would get you 10 oz of hops. Any takers?
What? What's a big dumb IPA and why would we have to buy in?
How about this: Anyone who wants to host the school portion for Cerveza and BrewBQ (even Harvest Fest) put together a detailed plan, then present it to the club during the general membership meeting on March 6th. Then we can all vote during the meeting.
Does this sound like a good idea?
Can't say I understand the concept of "buying in" either.
All you have to do is send $1 to 10 people on the list via USPS, and you'll receive $1,000 in the mail and the title of Beer School Host! It's a no-brainer, fail-safe plan.
Well, the idea is we could go in on a bulk hop buy all at once from Yakima Valley or Farmhouse supply to save money. I do this because it gets me stuff like Galaxy, Citra or Simcoe at about $1.50 and ounce instead of $3 an ounce at the local store (Centennial and Cascade sell for something like $1/oz) and because people have approached me about arranding a bulk hop buy.
So the idea was for everyone who's ever wanted to make Pliny or Zombie Dust or whatever, where the price of the hops alone would cost $40 at brew and grow, they could buy in and make the entire batch for $40 instead.
If no one's interested, that's also fine. Maybe only Struck is interested and the two of us will go flood Cerveza with 120+IBU DIPAs.
I don't know why there is such a confusion here. The buy-in cost for the barrel projects is like $50 and everybody seems to get it.
I believe the confusion stems from the fact that this is a thread about how we are going to establish the topic and the leadership of the next installment of the school series, but you are discussing a hop group buy, referring to it as wanting to brew big dumb IPAs. Not only was everyone else not aware of what exactly a big dumb IPA is, since this isn't a thread about hop group buys, no one was really quite sure what you were referring to, it kinda caught us off guard. For the record, a hop group buy is a great idea, but I would recommend starting a separate thread specifically about hop group buys to address those issues.
I believe the confusion stems from the fact that this is a thread about how we are going to establish the topic and the leadership of the next installment of the school series, but you are discussing a hop group buy, referring to it as wanting to brew big dumb IPAs. Not only was everyone else not aware of what exactly a big dumb IPA is, since this isn't a thread about hop group buys, no one was really quite sure what you were referring to, it kinda caught us off guard. For the record, a hop group buy is a great idea, but I would recommend starting a separate thread specifically about hop group buys to address those issues.
I believe the confusion stems from the fact that this is a thread about how we are going to establish the topic and the leadership of the next installment of the school series, but you are discussing a hop group buy, referring to it as wanting to brew big dumb IPAs. Not only was everyone else not aware of what exactly a big dumb IPA is, since this isn't a thread about hop group buys, no one was really quite sure what you were referring to, it kinda caught us off guard. For the record, a hop group buy is a great idea, but I would recommend starting a separate thread specifically about hop group buys to address those issues.
Well I can distill it down for people who aren't worried about logistics:
"Take the best 5 IPAs in the world that every beer geek wants to try and brew them"
And if you really want to do the ingredient isolation game:
Pliny highlights CTZ
Focal Banger highlights Mosaic
Zombie Dust highlights Citra
Hopslam highlits Simcoe
and so on...
I guess if someone has a good idea for a Toppling Goli Sue or Hill Farmstead Double Citra we could do that instead of Zombie Dust.
I thought it would be an improved idea to take a tried and true recipe that really highlights and elevates hop flavors as part of our "school series" rather than trying to experiment with and understand the way a completely new strain works in under 2 months.
Nobody went out last time and bought Smargd hops for their next IPA. In fact, until I wrote it down just now, I bet nobody even remembered it.
Now it all makes sense, why didn't you just say that in the first place Present that at the meeting and we'll put it to a vote
That idea has a lot of merit, if it doesn't get chosen as the school series for cerveza, if you could find enough participants it would be worth doing a "high hop" or "highly saught after"feature anyway. Maybe cap it at 5 or so....run with it.
That idea has a lot of merit, if it doesn't get chosen as the school series for cerveza, if you could find enough participants it would be worth doing a "high hop" or "highly saught after"feature anyway. Maybe cap it at 5 or so....run with it.
"Nobody went out last time and bought Smargd hops for their next IPA. In fact, until I wrote it down just now, I bet nobody even remembered it."
James, since the hop school last May, I've brewed with four of the new hops that were featured.
www.singingboysbrewing.com
Yeah, I was going to say, I brewed an IPA for the CHAOS both at Madison Wabash Bash in Agust, with the Jaryllo hops we used.
I know I'm newer but I really like the IPA idea. As of now I haven't really seen much of a point to the school series so far as I think it could be much more useful. Although it's served in a party atmosphere we are still a homebrew club and I think even random people who don't know as much about beer could be surprised at how different a beer tastes with different water additives or different hops.
Clearly the school series has no point. The opportunity to compare a wide variety of ingredients and/techniques back to back all at one time is pointless....
I like the water chemistry idea, same beer, different treatments. If that's too esoteric, then I think Big Dumb IPAs is where it's at. Give the people what they want.
But Jeff, you see that your experience is part of the issue with the design for the school.
Sure, you got Jaryllo. Do you understand my frusturation that a high-alpha american hop varietal with an almost double digit cohumulone count had thesame recipe as a hallertau derivative?
Triskel is used in small quantities in saison and farmhouse beers. How is someone going to learn how to utilize and understand that ingredient when you put it next to, say the Jaryllo hop which has 5 times oil content.
To me, that doesn't make any sense.
To me a school should be about understanding flavors and learning how to utilize them.
Hop variety A. What goes well with it? What doesn't? What complements it? Is it good for bittering but need an aroma sidekick? Is it a really dank aroma that is highlighted by a crushing bitterness? Or is it a bright fruity aroma that needs a really smooth, clean bitterness? Maybe it needs a big malt backbone with lots of alcohol. Or maybe it needs a really delicate lager to highlight the flavors. Can you build a recipe around it? Or do you use it to enhance a recipe?
I know that answer to those questions for maybe 5 or 6 varieties. I would love to expand that knowledge. I don't think the previous format of hop school did that very well, and I am offering my suggestions to make it better by using historical examples that have done a good job of highlighting flavors and demonstrating the range of hop flavors.
I agree, we should have used recipes that fit the hops, rather than one base recipe. Jim and I were replying to the implication that the concept of showcasing the new hops was a waste of time.
I think your idea to clone IPAs for showcasing hops is a good one!
Adam, if you can come up with a way to interest 200 drunk people, over loud music, in the concept of water additions, you have my vote for one of the schools! Seriously, that would be bad ass.
I'm going to push back a little bit here, but its done with a spirit of respect.
Hop flavors and aroma don't vary based on the style of beer you use the hops in. A hop variety has the same qualities whether you use it in a saison or an APA. A hop that smells like mango will smell like mango in a light lager or a DIPA.
A great way to highlight the three aspects of any one hop variety (bittering, flavor, and aroma) is to use it in a SMASH brewed as a small, light beer - in other words, a hop-forward beer. A great way to compare hops to each other, to compare dankiness to herbaceousnes to earthiness to citrus, is to brew a series of SMASH beers each featuring a different hop.
Doing a series of big IPA clones is interesting, but not for the reason of being able to discern the features of a hop variety and comparing it to other hop varieties. The beers are too complex for that.
www.singingboysbrewing.com
Way to go guys, you've gone and pissed Jim V off. I don't understand why anyone is worried about these being too technical(and I'm not technical). We have 30-40 other beers people can drink if they just want a thumbs up or down experience. The schools should be for people who are interested in what goes into making their beer(homebrewers, nerds, control freaks).
"Way to go guys, you've gone and pissed Jim V off."
That made me smile, thanks! Not mad at all, just disagree about how to showcase the distinctions between hops.
www.singingboysbrewing.com
Jim, I (respectfully) disagree with your methodology. I think that method will get some idea of what a hop does, but at the end of the day, there's a difference between a technically competent IPA, and a world class IPA.
On a scientific level, there are a lot of variables that effect the flavors expressed in hops. Water chemistry, alcohol, residual sugar, and the malt bill. The yeast plays it's part as well (notice all of the east coast IPAs use non-flocculant yeast and almost all of them have wheat starch in their beers).
This may be selfish on my part, but the way I get to understand hops really well is by through a beer that really highlights that hop in a way that's memorable from a sensory perspective. I'm going to be much more likely to learn, understand, and commit to long term memory an ingredient if it's used in a beer that I myself would want to brew and drink. Smash beers are fine, but I think there's a reason that, with the possible exception of Citra, single hopped beers are really not popular among the world class beers (I dare anyone to say the word Julius. Go on, I dare you). And certainly all of THOSE beers aren't smash beers, but have a profile that highlights that hop character and makes it interesting and memorable. I think that's what gets people interested in messing around with hop profiles, and by 4 great beers instead of 4 technically competent beers (well, 3 great beers if Struck gets in on this) will be long-term more valuable for the club and its members.
As a simple thought experiment, if I suggested Falconer's Flight and 7Cs as hop school smash beers, I'm pretty sure nobody would raise any objections.
I support the idea that the way the beer school is set up now, having an aspect of being exciting to unexperianced and new "craft beer/homebrew" drinkers is important. I also find that trying a lot of beers from a narrowed down category is very useful to me.
I hope we can work towards a middle ground here guys and not focus on if our personal opinion is "right" or "best." We're a team, let's not get too bogged down in debate.
In the spirit of compromise I'm going to suggest in the other thread a "smash beer" school. Basic rules: agreed upon hop addition times (I vote 18, 5, and flameout). No more than 2 hops. This allows for a ton of experimentation without "muddying the water" too bad. And APA's will probably be popular at a party. Also easy to brew.
Can we get some more middle ground ideas going? Or can we split a seperate "experment" thread off of this. I support all our mad scientists, and count myself as one. If we are excited enough to do a once every 3 month experiment, then there's no need to try and force that into the party which isn't really the right place for something technical. If we're not exicted enough to do that... then let's just stick with what works? Any of this sounding right?
To continue with the respectful disagreement...James you have a misunderstanding about the original intent of hop school and the school series, I don't know how many more times I'll have to explain this, but I will keep on explaining as this is at least the third time it's come up. I'm not suggesting we can't take it to the places you are suggesting we take it, there is value in your suggestions and we should explore that because it needs to keep evolving, however, hop school was not concieved nor ever intended to provide the drinkers with world class beers that would blow your mind, the original intent was very simple. It was to compare a group of ingredients by isolating all other variables as much as is reasonably possible, so I do not see your frustration that the high alpha hop had the same recipe as the low alpha hop...of course it did...it did on purpose...because we were comparing them, why is that frustrating? Doing the same recipe allows you to compare them on equal footing, it was about comparing them, it was not about providing them their absolute best possible platform to shine. It is worthless to compare more than 1 variable at a time, that's why one standard recipe was chosen, it was not the best possible for every single hop chosen, but it was the best possible for the range of hops chosen. All the IPAs brewed for previous hop schools did a great job at letting drinkers compare what 55 IBUs of that hop tasted and smelled like, it helped folks establish a baseline, and since they were drinking beers that had the same recipe and the same IBUs they could taste and smell 2 of them and the similarities and differences between high alpha and low alpha hops and high cohumulone and low,etc. etc. would all become more aparent because you could compare those traits because all others were isolated and identical. We discussed whether to match IBUs or match mass of the hops, we voted and decided on matching IBUs because it would further reduce the variables so the hops could be evaluated and compared more easily. It was like the question portion of a beauty pageant, they had to stand on their own merit and be judged and compared to their peers, what you are suggesting is like the swimsuit portion of a beauty pageant, you want to dress them up and accentuate all their best parts to be as good as possible. That's fine, as I said, it's a great idea, and one that's worth exploring, but the concepts behind previous hop schools and what you are stating are two very different ideas, and both ideas are full of merit, and both ideas have benefits and drawbacks. Your idea is a good one, please develop a proposal and present it at the next meeting for the vote.
James, I conpletely agree with you that SMASHs aren't generally great beers. If that's our objective, then SMASH isn't the way to go.
I'll disagree with you that they're not a good vehicle with which to compare ingredients (hops, malt and yeast) and other variables, like off-flavors. Many sensory experiments have been done using SMASHs for many years, by folks who know a lot more than I do.
www.singingboysbrewing.com
Alright, here's what we need, type up your hop school proposal and PM it to me, then we'll get you on the agenda to present it at the meeting.
Things we'll need to know:
How many brewers can participate, the magic number is usually 8, 10 is too many we've found, but if you have a reason we would need that many let us know.
What is the plan, what are we testing, teaching, learning, etc. what is the experiment or the lesson
What are you hoping people take away from your proposed school
Possible corporate sponsors, how can we get companies or the community involved, not necessary per se, but it is nice and helps us spread the gospel of Chaos...
Why is your plan the best, how does it fit in with the springtime and cerveza themes, sell it to us.
You don't necessarily have to plan it all out in your PM to me, just give me a brief outline so we know what we're looking at and how much time at the meeting needs to be budgeted for the brief presentations and the subsequent vote. We will do a secret ballot of all members present at the meeting, it will be counted immediately and all participants will have a chance to personally review all ballots if it really means that much to you, and to be clear I am not playing gatekeeper nor does my vote carry any more weight than any other members, this is completely and 100% a transparent and 100% democratic process. Before you ask, as I said before send me your ideas or at least declare to me your intent to propose a school, as I said I am not playing gatekeeper, I'm merely organizing this herd of cats we have going on here. I can give you advice from my experience having run many of the schools, I can even help you flesh out your ideas if you want, but the ultimate decision rests with the masses attending the meeting. Best of luck, lets hear some ideas.
Just one more idea, take it or leave it: same beer, but a different variable tweaked each time.
Have a base recipe - say, a regular ol' pale ale - as a "control" beer but change the hops (not the schedule, just the type of hop) in one permutation; change the yeast in another; change one *amount* of malt (not the kinds of malt) in another permutation, change water chemistry in yet another permutation. Could even take it one step farther and, time permitting, have one that's bottle conditioned and another that's force carbed to taste the difference; maybe nitro, too.
Yeah, it's sorta similar to the other schools we've done (e.g., hop school and yeast school) but this way, we're still changing one variable at a time but it's not just a *single* varition on a them (i.e., solely hops or solely yeast) but rather all the variations you could do with a single recipe.
I like this idea, Jim. I've actually liked reading all the previous thesis-worthy arguments as well! You guys are nuts! But nuts in a good way, haha.
I think a variant of primary ingredients that a lot of people use would be a great; 2 Row vs Maris Otter. Cara40L vs Cara80L. Biscuit Vs Victory. Wheat vs Flaked Oats. Munich vs Vienna. Corn vs Straight sugar, etc. Or an ale (1056, SA05) vs Lager yeast (same recipe).
These things would be very useful to not only the public, but to the brewers at the club as well.
I didn't read all of these posts. James, you said smashes aren't good beers? Wow, I could not possibly disagree more. You should make some more of them man! I've made smashes for weddings that were kicked before the "craft beer" kegs. Cheers!
For those of you thinking about a school idea for Cerveza School, it occured to me that 5 Rabbit Brewery would be an awesome partner/sponsor (I guess this could apply just to the party and not the school too, but wanted to throw it out there to help others brainstorm)
http://www.5rabbitbrewery.com
http://tinfoilhatbrewery.com/
Yep, we had them out for last year's Cerveza party and they brought some cool beers!
Just another idea, take it or leave it.
What about a school where we serve and blindly taste a bunch of different styles. Have the usual culprits lager, pale ale, amber, IPA, wheat, Porter, Stout, Sour (for novices) but we can also throw in a pilsner to see if they can taste/smell the difference from another kind of lager; or a west coast IPA to see if they can taste/smell the difference from the east coast IPA.
Or have all light SRM beers and serve drinkers blindly and they have to ascertain which kind of beer it is although they're all "golden"-ish (Pilsner, pale ale, ipa, wheat, sour, &c.). It may be pretty easy for the expert (tho, as mentioned above, you can throw in some that are really close) but the the novice to intermediate guest will be asked to engage with the beer in a different way than they have had to with previous schools.
That would be cool!
That's brilliant. "The Style Challenge" or something similar. I don't know why but in my mind I see that going over very well as a self serve station with scrap papers and golf pencils and a board with flaps covering so people could try and guess, then go to the board to peek and see the right answer. I'm thinking the self serve would allow more people to congregate and discuss, then maybe have the answer board a good 10-15 feet away to help preserve the mystery. It could also work as a contest in which people submit their guesses but the logistics and prizes get murky if all the bjcp people in the crowd dominate. This is a great idea though.
That would also take some pre-party quality control to ensure the beers brewed and served are accurate examples.
Self-serve would be great for that! I was going to say, my one concern in doing it would be logistics: the bar area tends to get crowded and it might be a pain for bartenders to pour flights, but if people are helping themselves, it would probably work better.
Not sure if it would even be possible, but to expand upon Jim's idea, and acknowledging the challenges Kyle mentioned, we could have our tech faction make a simple multiple choice type quiz app that folks could download, do self serve and just have numbered taps...not sure how hard that would be to program and get in the app stores, but we could push updates and use the interactive nature of it at future parties, enhanced menus and stuff...
Self serve would be awesome. Quality control would only be an absolutely necessity if we're going to do multiple types of the same style for the advance beer drinkers. Of course it would be best if each example were a spot on, shining epitome of that style but for the novice/intermediate drinkers, there's some leeway. It's really about engaging with the beer (and other people through discussion) and discerning the broad categories.
But, you just gave me a spinoff for the advanced brewer and drinkre: hit somewhere between a stout and porter and advanced drinkers can discuss which side it falls further on based solely on taste/aroma/look; make something inbetween two lager styles and have them try to discern from taste/aroma/look which it falls more into.
Ok, I want to loop back here.
I was mistakenly using the wrong terms here.
I'm suggesting a "Burster" School. Not a "smash".
What's a burster? A burster is when all of the hops are added in the last 20 mintues of the beer or less!
This style is awesome for APA's and even for IPA's. I thought it would be a great middle ground and everyone loves some hoppy fresh beer!