To help you with your holiday shopping for that beer lover or homebrewer that you know, or as a resource to figure out what you want for the holidays, I’ve formulated with the following Holiday Gift Guide. If you have any more suggestions, list them in the comments and I’ll update the article.

This guide has recommedation for book, movies, glassware, homebrewing, draft equipment, neon signs, and beer.

Books

Reading and learning about beer can be almost as fun as consumption of beer. The following are some recommended books on the subject.

• Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink by Randy Mosher, is a good resource of flavors, styles, and breweries.
• The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food by Garrett Oliver, is a great guide to pairing beer with food.
• Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer by Maureen Ogle, is an interesting take on the history of beer in America.
• Christmas Beer: The Cheeriest, Tastiest, and Most Unusual Holiday Brews by Don Russell, is a fun book about holiday beer.
• Michael Jackson’s Great Beers of Belgium by Michael Jackson, is considered by some to be the bible of Belgian beer.
• Good Beer Guide Belgium by Tim Webb, is a great guide to beer, beer bars, restaurants an breweries in Belgium. I used this book daily on a recent trip to Belgium and found it indispensable. Unlike most travel books, this guide is still very useful after the trip due all of the information about Belgian beer. I especially like the “Find that Beer” index.
• Red, White, and Brew: An American Beer Odyssey by Brian Yaeger, is about a craft beer trek across America.
• Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery by Sam Calagione, is the story about how Sam Calagione started Dogfish Head Brewery and got it off the ground.
• A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, is a view of world history from the standpoint of beverages such as beer.

The following are some great books on the subject of homebrewing.

• Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast’s Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home by Sam Calagione, is full of interesting beer recipes and is targeted at the beginner and extract homebrewers. It does, however, have some a great chapter about beer pairings including several recipes for food using beer as an ingredient.
• The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian is a great resource for beginners that starts easy and leads you through all-grain brewing. It includes a bunch of recipes.
• Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass by Randy Mosher is one of my favorite homebrewing books. It has interesting recipes for both extract and all-grain brewers (some recipes are all-grain only) and the history behind many of the recipes in the book. A very solid homebrewing book and highly recommended.
• Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles by Ray Daniels is for the advanced homebrewer with tons of details about several styles of beer.
• Clone Brews: Homebrew Recipes for 150 Commercial Beers by Tess Szamatulski has 150 recipes with partial-mash, extract, and all-grain versions of each.
• North American Clone Brews: Homebrew Recipes for Your Favorite American and Canadian Beers by Scott R. Russell has over 100 recipes, again for partial-mash, extract, and all-grain brewers.
• Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great-Tasting Beer by David G. Miller is a good guide for all-grain brewers and explains all the different methods of mashing and how it works on a technical and scientific level.

Movies

Movies with a beer theme can be great fun to watch and the documentaries are informative. Here is a list of movies about beer.

• Strange Brew (1983) is a classic movie with Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas about trying to get a free case of beer.
• Beerfest (2006) (Blu-ray edition) is a new classic comedy about beer. Octoberfest, brewing, beer games competition, slapstick comedy, this beer movie has it all. Das Booooot!
• Beer Wars (2009) is a recent documentary about the beer industry and the 3-tier system of distribution.
• Artie Lange’s Beer League (2006)

Glassware

As craft beer lovers know, beer is always best poured into a glass and especially good if you can drink it from the preferred shaped glassware. Beer Advocate has a great guide to beer glassware.

• Pilsner glasses use these for all of your lagers and German style beer.
  
• Double walled Pilsner glasses, keep you beer colder in one of these and admire your beer in this interesting glass.
• Beer Goblet glasses for all of your big Belgian beers like strong, dubbel, tripel, etc.
• Beer Steins are great for American craft ales, English ales, Oktoberfest beer, Vienna lager, and dark lagers.
• Weizen glasses are frequently sold as pilsner glasses. Use them for your wheat beers.
• Double walled weizen glasses keep your beer colder longer and look cool too.
• Imperial pint glasses are great for just about any American or English ale.
• Snifters are good for the high gravity ales like barleywine and Belgian-styles.
• Tulip glasses are great at collecting and concentrating the aroma of the beer. I liket hem for almost all styles but they are traditionally best for Belgian style beer and double IPA.

Homebrewing

One of the best resources for homebrewers is continuing to learn new techniques and recipes by reading magazines. The following magazines are great resources for hombrewers.

• Brew Your Own
• Zymurgy

There seems to be at least one constant with the hobby of homebrewing, the need to continually upgrade your equipment. You can start as simple as a single food grade bucket and some empty bottles and eventaully graduate to a full RIMS or HERMS setup.

• A Beginning Homebrew Kit is the place to start if you have never tried homebrewing and want to get started. The only thing this kit is missing is 48 bottles and sanitizer.
• Pre-assembled extract recipe kits are an easy way for extract brewers to brew their favorite beer styles without the trouble of digging for a recipe on the internet and wondering if it will be good or not. The link provided starts you off to find some great beer recipes.
• Auto siphons are the best and cleanest way to get a siphon started. I’m surprised how many homebrewings don’t have one of these.
• A homebrew kegging system is one of the best upgrades you can make as a homebrewer. Even though there is some prestige in bottled conditioned beer, it is a lot of work and kegging takes out many hours of work instantly. This kit has everything you need to get started.
• Used 5 gallon ball lock kegs are on sale for $16 as of writing (November 28, 2009) so get that extra one that you wanted for more beer or “cask” conditioning or what have you.
• Gift certificates make buying for a homebrewer easy. Let them choose what they need.

Draft Equipment

Having cold craft or homebrewed beer on draft at home is convenient and a wonderful experience. Years ago kegerators used to be completely inaccessible in price, now most of them are $600 or less.

• Haier Dual Faucet Kegerator w/ Stainless Steel Door is what I recommend to start with. Why two faucets? Because it is much cheaper to start with two than to upgrade later. Keg fridges will fit either one full keg, one pony keg, or two or more 5 gallon kegs. Since homebrewers and also many craft brewers use 5 gallon kegs, the desire to have 2 beers on tap will arise shortly after purchase.
• Deluxe Keg Tap Refrigerator Kegerator Conversion Kit will allow you to use an existing old refrigerator and turn it into a keg fridge. I recommend, however, that if they fridge is very old to either get a newer used fridge or a full on kegerator. Old fridges use a lot of power, unnecessarily.

Tap handles are fun and useful and are even sometimes collected by beer enthusiasts who don’t even have a draft beer setup.

• This Tap Handle Display – Holds Eight: Walnut is perfect for the tap handle collector.
• A Custom Beer Tap Handle is great if you want to design your own logos for your homebrew.
• The Changeable Tap Handle with Natural Oak Finish is another easy customizeable solution for tap handles.
• Use a Chalk Board Tap Handle to quickly write what beer you have on tap. Use this with color chalk to get really creative.
• For something stylish, check out the Pub Style Beer Tap Handle with Oval Shield or without Oval Shield.
• There are also crazy shaped styles of tap handles:
  • Leprechaun Beer Tap Handle
  • Beach Babe Beer Tap Handle
  • Devil Maiden Beer Tap Handle
  • Bulldog Beer Tap Handle
  • Monkey In a Tree Beer Tap Handle
  • Mexican Pepper Beer Tap Handle
  • Dartboard Beer Tap Handle
  • Wild Boar Beer Tap Handle
  • Hawg Motorcyle Beer Tap Handle
  • Football Beer Tap Handle
  • Golf Bag Beer Tap Handle
  • Wizard Beer Tap Handle

Neon Signs

If you have a bar setup, a basement, man-cave, or a garage, these signs can really light up the atmosphere. Although I’m not much of a fan of Pacifico, I have a wonderful Pacifico neon sign in the garage above the kegerator.

• Anchor Steam Neon Sign
• Cerveza Pacifico Sail Fish Neon Sign
• Cold Beer Neon Sign
  

Beer

Giving beer as a gift to a craft beer lover can be more difficult than you might think. First, you need to know what beer the recipient likes and dislikes. Next, to make it special, you should look for a unique bottle of something either imported and hard to find, special release, or limited edition. If you can meet these criteria, then giving beer as a gift can be great. If not, you can always give a gift certificate to a a good beer store or bottle shop.

Over the summer I decided that I wanted to brew a beer that everybody would like and something that would be fitting for hot weather. I also wanted to re-use the yeast for more than one batch of beer. This led me to brew a kölsch-style beer, a great summer beer and then I can re-use the yeast for my next batch, an altbier. Not so coincidentally, the May-June 2009 issue of Brew Your Own [subscribe] had an article and a few recipes for kölsch. At the time I was not setup for all-grain and I did not have easy access to Briess Pilsner liquid malt so I formulated my own recipe.

• 5 lbs. light dry malt extract
• 3.5 lbs. German pilsner malt
• 0.5 lbs. Vienna malt
• 2 0z. Hallertau hops (4.1% alpha) for 60 minues
• Whirlfloc for 15 mintues
• White Labs WLP029 – German Ale/Kölsch yeast

As I do for every batch of homebrew, I began by making a yeast starter. The volume for this starter was 1.23 L including 7 oz. of dry malt extract, giving the starter a calculated original gravity of 1.059.

For the mash I followed the counter-top partial mash method that was described in an article by Chris Colby in the October 2006 issue of Brew Your Own magazine [subscribe]. With the empty grain bag already in the cooler, I filled the water cooler with 5.5 quarts of 160ºF water. Next, I slowly added the grains to the cooler, which would also go into the grain bag. I reached my target temperature of 149ºF. I let the grains mash for 1 hour and a began to recirculate the wort and then collect the first wort. Following the outlined procedure I sparged the grains by adding 168°F water for 5 minutes and then collected the second wort.

Both the first and second wort were added to water already boiling in the brew kettle. I brought the wort to a boil and added the 2 oz. of Hallertau hops. During the final 30 minutes I slowly added the dry malt extract. During the last 15 minutes I added Whirlfloc, a fining agent.

After chilling the wort and draining the brew pot into the fermenter, I discovered that I only had 15 quarts of wort so I topped it up with a little bit of water and also the yeast starter bringing my total volume to 5 gallons. Another step I always take before sealing the fermenter is to oxygenate the wort using pure oxygen passed through a porous stone.

Finally, I put the primary fermenter into my newly “converted” dorm-fridge fermentation box. As you can see in the photo, the clearance wasn’t quite enough for an airlock so I had to use a blow off tube. Using the fridge and my analog temperature controller I was able to maintain 60ºF throughout fermentation.

Review

Commercial versions are certainly better but I this recipe turned out very well, I’m enjoying the beer, and I made it myself.

Appearance. The head on this homebrew is white and foamy with tight bubbles and the head stays for an average to below average amount of time. The color is a yellow-brown light amber honey color. The clarity is hazy probably due to chill haze.

Smell. This kölsch has a very slightly earthy, spicy bouquet from the Hallertauer hops. It has a clean and sweet sweet aroma that I believe comes from both the malt and the yeast. The yeast and the grains also give it a lager like quality. The sweetness of the malt has almost a subtle white-grape smell. In summary, malty sweet aroma with a hint of earthy greenery.

Taste. I really enjoy the flavor of this beer. It has a sweet malty grain flavor balanced with a reasonable amount of bitterness to offset some of the sweetness. The hops, yeast, and grain combine to give a sweet yet earthy flavor with a crisp amount of bitterness. Quite delicious.

Mouthfeel. The final, 1.012, is a bit higher than I wanted but the starting gravity was also a little higher too. This makes the mouthfeel not as dry as I wanted. On the other hand it does not have too much body and the gravity is only slightly higher than the acceptable range of 1.007 and 1.011. It could also use a bit more carbonation so I’ll turn up the CO2 a little bit to fix that problem (after a few days).

Drinkability. This is one of the strongest aspects of this beer. The sweetness with some bitterness to balance makes this a pleasurable homebrew to drink. It is crisp and very drinkable for a hot day or a cool evening and for multiple in one sitting. Just like a kölsch should be.

Information

• Original gravity: 1.052
• Final gravity: 1.012
• Bitterness: 28-30 IBU
• Alcohol by volume: 5.2%

I was flipping through my copy of North American Clone Brews [Amazon] when I came across a recipe for Black Dog Ale, on page 81, from Spanish Peaks Brewing. It seemed to be the perfect recipe for what I wanted and it was a beer that I have not had in ages and have not seen in the stores for a long time.

When I got to the homebrew shop, they were out of Mt. Hood whole hops so I substituted with Vanguard whole hops. The following is a modified version of the recipe from North American Clone Brews. The main differences are the Vangaurd hops substitution, addition of Whirlfloc, substituted crystal 50 with 40 and 60, and the amount of dry malt extract that I used.

• 5 lbs. light dry malt extract
• 0.5 lbs. Crystal Malt 40
• 0.5 lbs. Crystal Malt 60
• 12 oz. white wheat malt
• 4.5 AAU Willamette whole hops (60 minutes)
• 4.5 AAU Vanguard whole hops (15 minutes)
• Whirlfloc wort clarifier (15 minues)

This recipe has a starting gravity of about 1.055 and a target final gravity of 1.012.

I started this batch using the counter-top partial mash method that was described in an article by Chris Colby in the October 2006 issue of Brew Your Own magazine [Amazon]. I have a 2 gallon water cooler and a large grain bag that I use for the partial-mash. In this recipe I mashed the grains with a few quarts of water at 158°F for 45 minutes. I sparged with 168°F water for 5 minutes. I collected the wort and added it to boiling water. Next time I plan on using more grains since the water cooler can accomodate more.

One of the most exciting parts of this homebrewing session was using my brand new 8 gallon brew pot and 60,000 BTU burner. I was able to perform a full wort boil but having not done a full wort boil before, I didn’t know how much more than 5 gallons of water I needed and at the end of the 60 minute boil, I only had 4 gallons of wort. The other new thing that I tried was adding the dry malt extract as a late addition to cut down on caramelization.

As I do for every batch, I created a 1000 mL yeast starter with 5 oz. of dry malt extract. In the past I had problems with fermentation lagging to long or not finishing. That all stopped after I added a yeast starter to my brewing process. Within 6 hours fermentation had taken off. The pictures below were taken about 8 hours after pitching the yeast.

After 10 days in the primary fermenter, I transferred the beer into the secondary fermenter and I used that opportunity to take a gravity reading and sample the beer. The gravity was very close to the target at 1.015. The beer tasted very good, albeit flat and room temperature, with a pilsner like quality in the hops bouquet, probably due to the Vanguard hops. I can’t wait to get this into the keg because I think this will be a great summertime beer.

I poured the beer from the keg into a glass and the following is what I experienced.

Appearance. This beer has a yellow tan head that doesn’t last very long. It is hazy, as a hefeweizen usually is, the has a deep red-orange amber color.

Smell. The blood orange hefeweizen that I brewed has a strong clove smell and a hint of banana. It has a citrus and dark ripened fruit bouquet, which, for me, seemed to be a characteristic of the blood oranges. The smell is not terribly sweet and I was expecting a lot more of the blood orange smell.

Taste. The banana aspect of the blood orange hefeweizen is more prevalent in the taste. The yeast also gives it a clove spice quality. When the clove flavor is combined with the unsweetened blood orange flavors, it reminds me just a little of orange-spice herbal tea. Where the tea is very in your face with the flavors, in the beer thse flavors are more subtle.

Mouthfeel. This batch of homebrew did not reach the target final gravity. It ended up with a little more body than I wanted creating a slight surup-like sensation on the tongue. It seems to leave a bit of a yeasty aftertase in your mouth.

Drinkability. Despite the fact that this homebrew recipe wasn’t quite what I expected, it is a drinkable beer. Especially while is cold out of the keg, it has a refereshing quality to it. The uniqueness of it is a drawback, however, to having more than two at a time.

All in all, I thought this was an interesting beer to brew and drink. I’m not sure that I would brew it again any time soon. If I did try brewing it again, I would use a more neutral flavored yeast. I think the hefeweizen yeast might have overpowered the taste and smell of the blood oranges.

Recipe

I found the recipe for this beer on page 96 of Extreme Brewing but as usual I had to substitute a few ingredients. Here is the version of the recipe that I brewed:

• 6.85 lbs of liquid wheat extract (65 minutes)
• 0.5 oz Liberty hops 4.5% AA (60 minutes)
• 0.7 oz really old (but sealed and refridgerated) Czech Saaz hops 3.2% AA (20 minutes)
• 0.5 oz Liberty hops 4.5% AA
• White Labs WLP380 Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast
• 4 blood oranges
  • Grate the orange part (the white part is very bitter) of the rind of 2 of the oranges
  • Peel, section, and chop all 4 blood oranges
  • Heat fruit in 1/2 gallon of water to 160°F, cover, turn off heat, cool.
  • Add to primary fermenter
• 2 blood oranges
  • I sampled the beer going from the primary to the secondary I added because I wanted more blood orange flavor.
  • Grate the rind of one of the oranges
  • Juice both the blood oranges
  • Bring the mixture barely to a boil.
  • Cool and add to the secondary fermenter

Yeast Starter

Three days before brew day I made a 1.25 L yeast starter with a quarter cup of light dry malt extract. I bought it to a very gentle boil on an electric stove. While wearing silicone oven mits, I pulled the flask off of the heat when it looked like it was about to boil over.

Yeast Starter for White Labs WLP380 Hefeweizen IV Yest

Brew Day

The following are some pictures that I took on brew day. The first picture (and the first picture in this post) are of the blood oranges. I used two store bought blood oranges and two home grown (by relatives, not me) blood oranges. Can you guess which were store bought? The home grown ones were blood red in color while the other oranges were more pink and brown.

Below I’m adding the liquid wheat malt extract to the boiled water. More Flavor in Los Altos, CA packages their LME in convenient bags. I thought that this wheat LME was a little dark, which will probably hide some of the redness from those really dark blood oranges.

Liberty hop pellets, measured out to 0.5 oz and ready to be added to the wort.

Liberty Hop Pellets

The boiling wort is ready for the hop pellets to be added.

The picture below is the “tea” of chopped blood orange sections, which have sunk to the bottom,, and grated blood orange peel, which is floating on the top. I brought this mixture to 160°F and left it there for about 10 minutes. After it cooled down I dumped the entire contents into the primary fermenter.

The wort chiller was one of the best pieces of homebrewing equipment I’ve purchased. I chilled the wort in about 16 minutes.

Adding the wort to the primary fermenter. I cooled it down to about 75°F.

At the time of writing, it has been about 3 weeks since brew day. The last sample I took had a gravity that was very close to the target so I’ll be kegging this weekend. After the beer is properly carbonated I’ll sample it and post a review.

Others Who Brewed this Recipe

• Beer Brewing Blog – Blood Orange Hefeweizen
• Homebrew Talk – Blood Orange Hefeweizen
• Hop Cast – Episode 30