Ogden Street Brewers Gallimaufry/Brew-Kus

Do you see what I see? Cause this is what I see.

Looking out my front door, beautiful Ogden lies before me. All sorts of characters here, hoo boy! Tall Reggie with the limp; That bald guy and his shifty hands; Old Lady who Always Asks for Change. Yup, the gang's all here. But wouldn't you know it? Things have quieted down around the neighborhood; your intrepid blogger remembers several years ago, when he first moved in...man, was the block hot in those days! The OS Brewers had to batten down the hatches back then. Bottling a cool new brew? Someone better post up at the window (gotta make sure the coast is clear.) Now? Hops and mulberries in the backyard, and a lot more peace and quiet out front. They say CoHi is changing. They're right. Soon, when the OS Community Brewpub opens for business, the Brewers will look back on those days and shake their heads. Think how bad it once was, We'll say. Think how far CoHi has come.

What we're working on:

1. Belgian-style Grand Cru. Needs to be bottled. We started this sucker with a dream, a promise, and the skeleton of a recipe from Papazian's HB v. III. Along the way, things got a little out of hand. OS Brewer Reid-O brought his coffee grinder down for kicks, and we had ourselves a little coriander party. Reid-O's grandfather donated a jug of organic honey (this s**t was the bees knees, son!) and we added an ounce at the beginning of the boiling for dryness, and again after the hopping for some sweetness. Yes, honey can be used for either purpose. You read that right. Also: some serious hopping went down. Fuggles, Challenger and Golden all entered the fray, in that order. This sweet-citrus-floral blonde brew is ready for bottles. First tasting when Sampson returns from his archaeological ambulating in Honduras.

WRONG CRU, Y'ALLS

2. Mulberry Ale. Needs to be brewed. We have about a pound of fresh organic mulberries from our backyard waiting to be pressed and added to the kettle. One potential snag brewers Sampson and Reid-O and advisor/guru/mentor Peter have touched on: at what point in the process do we add the fresh mulb juice? Could be added as early as with the malt; could be added along with the yeast...and anywhere in between. Reid-O and your humble brew-blogger seem to be of like mind: that our berries should be added right after the hops, as the wort cools and awaits its yeasty transformation (sounds kinda nasty, doesn't it?) If any wise fellow brewers out there have an opinion, we'd love to hear it.

3. Hops. Damn, these little guys are growing! We'll have full pics for you in the next couple of days, but suffice it say, they've come a looooooooong way since we planted them all of 10 weeks ago. From one little rhizome grow emperors and kings. Will they flower? Will they cone? A learned former brewmaster from Flying Dog enlightened us: The plants, he explained, produce a thin wax each night. As the wax burns off in the daytime heat, the plants know to grow up and out. And when the days begin to shorten and the wax no longer burns off, the plant takes this as a signal to grow buds. However, he cautioned, not every first-year hop plant produces cones. (Hops grow to maturity in 3 years; the first year, one can expect a 50% yield, if anything at all. The second year, this jumps to 75%. In the third year, a hop will produce, all else equal, as many cones as it ever will.) The consortium of OS Brewmeisters believes their hops will offer fragrant Cascade cones come September. (Insert generic "Audacity of our Hops" joke here).

4. Twitter. Follow us on Twitter. HeightsHops is what we're called, and there's a link in the sidebar. We'll be twittering all day and all night, bringing you up-to-the-minute info on DC brew news. Or, I guess you could just wait another 3 weeks for Greg Kitsock to put out yet another self-indulgent issue of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. I mean, it's up to you. Heights Hops: Tweeting you into the Great Beery Beyond.

5. PA Brew-venture. A few OS Brewers are tentatively planning a pilgrammage to DE/PA. Among the holy sites on the itinerary: Dogfish Head; Troegs, Victory; Flying Fish; and Legacy. Interested? Done something similar and have some advice? Don't be afraid to twitter or comment on the blog. We want your help.

6. Finally, the OS Brewers want to advertise on your behalf. If you need a shot out on the blog for something local you've done, or want to do; or if you work for a bar or restaurant that needs to be heard; let us know. If the product is good, we'll rep you enthusiastically.

Another Brew-Ku

Going to a Nats
Game today; going to need
A stiff drink after.

What the OS Brewers are up to:
The OG is getting all marital and s**t
Reid-O is getting all operatic and s**t
Sampson is getting all anthropological and s**t
Bob is getting all national pastime and s**t


Till Friday, suckas.

HH

Generic Mid-Atlantic Brewing Rant/The Audacity of our Hops/Review: Founder's DubTrub

Yup, I know, I copped the heading from the actual shit (which I may, fingers crossed, be sampling on Thursday in honor of R.M.'s birthday festivities. If this happens, best believe the review will knock the socks off the fawning, stick-up-their-ass write-up in Mid-Atlantic Brewing back in January.)

A word about Mid-Atlantic Brewing: those guys are painfully old. Forget the fact that beer nerds tend to be a naturally occlusive bunch--even yours truly, Beer Populist and Ogden Street Die-hard, will gently turn his nose up to the n00b who wanders into the middle of a beer conversation and talks about how Magic Hat #9 blew his mind--but on the real, those dudes think it's still 1980, when Anchor Steam was cutting edge, and new beer either sank or swam based on the self-gratifying bulls**t opining of a small cabal of carbuncular brew-geeks. Well, those guys are now about thirty years older, fifty pounds heavier, and just as obstinate.

These are the guys who show up in droves to tastings at RFD or Rustico and hijack the proceedings. These are the guys who won't talk to you unless your name ends with "Oliver" or "Calagione," despite the fact that they think Sierra Torpedo is "cutting-edge." (Citra Hops = Biggest. Letdown. Ever.) These are the guys who spend half their lives in bars and don't know how to tip. These are the guys who think they've "earned" the right to tell you what to drink, even though half of them probably don't even homebrew. You want REAL beer knowledge? It's out there, buddy; and it's not in the hands of those old farts.

Come to us. H.H. will drop serious brew knowledge whenever, wherever. And we promise to never, ever, ever, condescend.

Time Lapse Hoptimology

Ogden Street Brewery Hops, aged 4 weeks

...And again, aged 6 weeks
...And again, aged 8 weeks (late-May)

Look at the little guys go!

We've had a fairly wet spring here in the District, and no doubt all that water has helped our hops skyward. The second plant from the left, in particular, has become more intrepid than the others; notice the offshoots right around deck-level. Sampson explains: when the plant can no longer grow upward as rapidly due to space constraints, it knows to splice itself, so it can grow horizontally. Smart plants, no?

So far, the only pests I've personally encountered were a couple of daring ladybugs making their rounds on a mid-level leaf. (I say 'pests' because ladybugs do eat leaves, but not hop leaves. They must have gotten lost on the way to the mulberry tree.) Some of the plants have the characteristic tripartite leaf shape (think the Canadian Maple leaf, but with more scooped edges and less pronounced tips), but one of the vines has leaves with a more classic, almost chevron-like shape to them. These rounded, arrow-tip-shaped leaves are cupped near the base, and on a recent inspection, I found the two buggers holed up there. Snug as bugs in a rug, er, leaf.

One last note: OSB's next project is a mulberry-wheat ale, with all-organic mulberries plucked right in the Brouwerij's backyard (shot out to Reese.) Possible live-blogging of the brewing process, plus specs, coming your way soon enough.

What the OS Brewers are doing right now:
MLB '09 The Show for PS3.
Sampson can't wait for the Matt Wieters Show to hit Camden Yards
Bob can't thank Yovani Gallardo enough
Tim can't believe David Ortiz has one home run all year

Review: Founder's Double Trouble

Everyone basically jumped on the Founder's bandwagon when they hit the District this year. This sort of thing seems to happen about once every six months: some hotshot microbrewery from Michigan or Colorado or Louisiana finally makes it to the East Coast and everyone blows their load (except the Mid-Atlantic Brewing people, who automatically disdain the new beer because it wasn't around during the Carter Administration.) Last year it was Green Flash/Mad River etc. This year so far, it's Blue Point/Kona/Duck-Rabbit, and Founder's is the latest in this line.

Let Heights Hops be the first to say that, unlike some of these other arrivistes, Founders is the real deal. Their porter is the creamiest, caramel-est, nuttiest, chocotastic-est delight this side of the Harpoon Leviathan series. Their Cerise is a Belgian-style dream in the vein of a sweeter Oude Beersel Kriek. And their big, progressive scotch-style brew, quite frankly, mops the floor with a more traditional submission like Skullsplitter.

Therefore, I had relatively high hopes for their Double Trouble, a Double IPA supposedly in the mold of the Great Divide Hercules or the Steelhead 2xPale.

Review:

Nose: Many West-Coast style IPAs tend to be robust, floral and citrusy, while their Midwestern and East-Coast contemporaries are more restrained. Double Trouble, which comes from Michigan, splits the difference. Mild, fragrant, and malty, with tantalizing notes of grapefruit, lime and kiwi.

Body: Deeper and richer in color than your typical Pale. I wanted to call it burnt orange, but really, it's almost beige.

Palate: The bottle advertises, shamelessly, 86 Bittering Units. They were not kidding. Bitter at the front, but in that indefinably appealing way that Hop Head Red or Hercules manages to overwhelm with hoppiness while not giving away too much of its hand. Juicy, wet hoppiness remains midway. Accompanied by ascorbic notes, lemon, spice and pine.

Finish: The mouth feels wet from the hoppiness at the end. It is not an entirely pleasant feeling, however. One wishes the slickness of the conclusion could be tempered.

Overall: I had higher hopes for this beer. Still, if you're an IPA person, it's worth a buy. At 9.4% ABV, anyway, you'll feel exponentially better about your purchase with each brew quaffed.

Final Rating: **1/2

Here's Hop-ing for the best/Review: Anderson Valley Summer Solstice (Cerveza Crema)

Ogden Street Hops, circa approx. early April

The Ogden Street Brewery is currently nurturing four lovely vines of genuine Cascade Hops. Rhizomes courtesy of Tim and his connects. In the six weeks since this pic was taken, the plants have grown over eight feet. (Pics to be provided in an upcoming post.)

If all goes well, sometime around September, we'll have a bunch of these:

We have a few things going for us (info from Sampson):

1. Hops flourish between 35 and 50 degrees latitude. This is true irrespective of the hemisphere. Some top hop spots are Chile, China, South Africa, Australia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and America. Washington, DC: 38 degrees north latitude. Prime hop territory, son.

2. Overused hop-growing regions suffer from an abundance of pests. Luckily, hop predators attack only hops. This means that growing hops in a new area guarantees at least a few initial successful growing seasons.

3. Humulus lupulus ("ground wolf," in Latin) is an apposite moniker for the hop plant; the root system of an adult plant is infamously extensive. Ogden Street Brewery has provided its quartet of sapling vines with a capacious plot in which to spread out. (ours have already snuffed out the lives of interloping weeds and clovers in the Official OSB planter's box.) Miracle Gro also available. Thanks, Home Depot at R.I. Ave. and 10th, NE!

4. Cascade hops enjoy the climate synonymous with their name: long, mild, wet springs, followed by warm summers. Can the D.C. area hook it up? We think it can. (If only the humidity weren't so f***ing oppressive.)

One of the definitive tutorials on hop-growing history can be found in the late, great, Beer Hunter's tome on Belgian beers. Michael Jackson's book has helpful graphs and maps--great for a cartographile like me--as well as pictures of hop vines and cones. (And really, who doesn't love pictures of old, British, gin-blossomed men holding handfuls of hop cones?)

What the OS Brewers are listening to right now:
Classified--"Boycott in the Industry"
Phoenix--"Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix"
Murs--"Murs 3:16"

Review of Anderson Valley's Summer Solstice (Cerveza Crema)

Who knew: Anderson Valley's brewers have a sense of humor. The ursine imprint on every AV bottle has been replaced with the apochryphal "bear-moose," which I guess fits into the same mold as the Jackalope and the Hodag. Oh, and the bear-moose wears sunglasses. But that makes sense; they're always tending to one vine or another in Anderson Valley.

Nose: Vanilla, cream (duh), cinnamon, nutmeg. An aromatic slam-dunk.

Body: Rouge--calls to mind a darker Van Honsebrouck Kasteel.

Palate: More of the same: soft vanilla notes, with some serious nutmeg in the middle. Earthy, gentle, smooth mouthfeel.

Finish: Lingering creaminess.

Overall: An excellent summer beer. Go and buy a six-pack today. (And do it at Devines @ 14th and Irving, NW, or their sister joint, Devinos, at 18th and U, NW. They deserve your business. And finally, if you see the dude who purchases beer for Pete's Pizza behind the CoHi metro--a bomb ass slice, btw, though haters and New Yorkers say you can't find a good slice in the District--give him the finger. Hi, Hater!)

Final Rating: ***1/2