Women - Better Beer Tasters?

While this Wall Street Journal article focuses on very large, corporate taste testers, it certainly can apply across the whole beer industry. I will admit that I don't necessarily think that the statement "Women are better beer tasters than men" is valid. It is more about the individual's ability to detect nuances and very specific flavors. Maybe more women have the ability to do this though. I wonder what percentage of the GABF judges were women? Or if there is an effort in homebrew competitions to have a mix of judges? Certainly it is an interesting topic that I had not really given any thought to previously.

Rare Keg Thursday at Raleigh Saucer

This week is a very special treat from the guys at Foothills Brewing. They are bringing a keg of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrel aged People's Porter. Finally I will have a chance to try some of the much hyped and talked about barrel aged beers from Foothills!

New Homebrew in Primary

It's been a busy spring, with not enough time to write around here, though there has been plenty of beer drinking. I'll get around to reviewing some places we stopped at during travels soon. Until then you'll just have to settle for a recap of my brewday yesterday.

I wanted to do a Belgian style ale, lower gravity, some light hops. Sounds perfect for a Belgian Pale Ale right? Close, I found a DeKoninck clone recipe on BYO.com. The beer is basically a Belgian Amber, with the amber coming from 1/8th of a pound of chocolate malt and dry amber extract. My recipe was:

2.5 lbs of Belgian 2 row (pilsener) malt
1.0 lb of Vienna malt
0.125 lb of Chocolate malt
3 lbs of Amber dry extract
2 oz of 5.8% AA Saaz hops for 60 mins
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale
1 tsp Irish Moss for 15 mins

The partial mash was done for 90 mins at 152 degrees with 5.5 qts of water. Sparged at 165 with appx 2 gallons. Then the dry extract had to be added ahead of the 60 min boil with all of the hops.

Minus a little snafu and 'doh moment involving the grain bag and kettle the brew went smoothly. The yeast had not taken off this morning yet, but from research it seems like some of the Belgian strains can take a while to get going. I did hit the target O.G. of 1.046, and the beer came out a nice clear brownish amber. It should ferment out for about a week. I'll probably let it sit a bit in secondary before bottling this one. The recipe recommended 3-4 weeks, but I probably will not go that long.