A few Good Minutes with Jason Malone

It hasn't been easy, and the stars seemed aligned to prevent it from occurring, but I finally spoke with Jason Malone from Good People Brewing Company Although I'm not sure if I'm legally allowed to post the entire interview because it's for BeerAdvocate Magazine, but here are some juicy excerpts from my conversation with Jason:

Q: What has been your experience as a brewer in Alabama?

A: We’re really fortunate to kind of get involved in brewing in Alabama when we did. There were breweries that came before us in the 90s that, given the market, were ahead of the time. They had to do two things and do it really well, they had to make good beer - but just as important they had to educate folks that it was good beer. With no trailblazers ahead of them, they were trying to navigate uncharted waters. The demographic here, especially at that time, was quite different than places like Colorado and Oregon where craft brewing was thriving… I really think those guys were ahead of their time and because of that they weren’t successful and had to close down back when the first craft wave was coming though.

Q: (OK I don't remember what question I asked, in fact I think he brought it up on his own, but Jason mentioned was talking about beer culture in Alabama as Free The Hops and legislators were working on repealing prohibitive restrictions on ABV)

A: What we did have is a lot of people tuned into what was going on because of this grass roots effort. A lot of the people, instead of saying “Gosh it’s so great we can get all this great beer here,” they were saying “I wish we could.”... People knew that something was going on and that there were a bunch of guys and gals trying to get something going on in the beer world. That really worked well for us when we came down because we had a large group of folks who were interested in drinking good beer. The fact that they couldn’t get a lot of good beer made them even more interested.

Q: How did you get started in the brewing business?

A: We were basically just homebrewers that made beer for a long time without any inclination to start a business. We weren't looking to find a business, the business just found us. You take beer to so many places so many times, and you can only hear someone say this is really good beer you should start selling this, before you take them seriously… when it becomes evident that people think as much about your beer as you do and enjoy drinking it as much as you do, before long you take it seriously.

Q:How did you come up with the name "Good People Brewing?"

A: We just thought it was a really good representation of what we were trying to do and the folks we were serving. It’s less about us and more about our customers and community. The folks who support us and the retailers out here.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: We’re very passionate about being what a local brewery should be. We’re dedicated of taking care of our local market before looking at expansion. We try to involve our local market as much as possible. There’s something to be said about living in a city with a brewery. Most decent sized cities these days have a brewery, so it’s not a novelty its an expectation. One of the benefits is being keyed in and having pride in ownership of what goes on at the local brewery. We’re just trying to be keyed into that.

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Interested in more? Check out BeerAdvocate in a few months for a real story. Sorry, I hate to be a tease, but I don't want to give away the good stuff!

Cheers!

iPhone Beer Thoughts

This is my first crack at blogging from My phone, so please excuse any errors. It's also safe to assume I won't be bothering adding many links either.

So I had a thought today as I looked at all the beer in my fridge. Some of it I made myself, some of it I bought, and some of it was given to me. Of the three choices, the last is my favorite kind. There's something about free beer that warms a man's soul. I love making beer and I tend to think I do it pretty well, and what beer geek doesn't enjoy spending half his paycheck at the liquor store with a basket full of beer? But when you get beer from some else, it's simply one of life's great moments.

What I'm talking about here is a bottle of Indigo Imp's robust porter, Jester. You probably haven't heard of indigo imp, unless you live in Cleveland. They're a small outfit that only puts their product in bottles. There's more on them in the next beeradvocate magazine, but some things didn't make the cut. Stuff like brewmaster and co-owner Matt Chappel and his wife Kathy (the other owner) decided tofollow a dream of making beer and didn't let the fact that they live in a city home to several great breweries deter them. It's people like Matt and Kathy that make me love the beer industry. To Indigo Imp, breweries like Great Lakes aren't competition or enemies - they're just neighbors. I also didn't mention the fact that Matt agreed to send me some beers (incredibly good and unique) in exchange for some homebrews. And of course I didn't mention that, like a complete jerk, I promptly forgot about that pledge to trade until a sixpack showed up in my building's foyer. Don't worry Matt, six tasty homebrews are headed your way sir.

And while we are talking here about good people, I'm excited to finally speak with Jason Malone from Good People Brewing Co. out of Alabama. We've been playing phone tag for a couple of weeks, but we're all set for a phone interview on Sunday. Details of the interview will be posted - probably tomorrow night.

That's all today folks... Cheers.

Brewday - Brewing 101

Any day that ends with six gallons of wort fermenting in my fridge is a good day. Today is a good day, with an IPA on its way in a few weeks.

For my first homebrew post on the blog, I will go step by step through the brewing process, with the hope that maybe one person might learn something here today.

We start with the Mash.  To your right you will see your typical igloo cooler, with not-so-typical ingredients. Inside is 10 pounds of crushed 2-row barley, 1/2 pound of munich barley (a German malt that lends a nice grain flavor) and 1/2 pound of Crystal 10 barley (a highly modified grain that has been crystallized and adds a caramel sweetness to the beer. On my kitchen stove I bring 3.44 gallons of water to a temperature of 168.4 degrees, then add that hot water (called hot liquor) to the grain (called grist). The result is a mixture called the mash which sits at about 152-154 degrees. Temperature control is critical, as the hot water activates enzymes in the barley that converts the complex starches in the grain into sugars that yeast can eat and turn into alcohol. Too high, and the enzymes denature and don't work, too low and the enzymes remain inactive and don't do anything (slight variations in temperature also have varying effects, such as increasing the protein levels in the mixture which can give a beer a full body).

After a 45 minute rest, it's time to start collecting the runoff. By now those 3.44 gallons of water are a syrupy sweet liquid loaded with sugars from the mash. But they are also loaded with grain particles and need to be filtered out. Fortunately, there's 12 pounds of grain ready to act as a natural filter. I pour the runoff back over the grain (notice the aluminum foil with holes punched in it. This ensures that the pouring liquid does not create channels in the grain that would lead to a lower efficiency). After about 15 minutes, the foil is removed and the process, called the vorlauf process, is completed. At this time we move on and begin to collect the full volume of wort. In this case, it's just over seven gallons. To add more water and rinse the sugars from the grain, a second tank of hot water (in this case a five-gallon igloo cooler) supplies 168 degree water to rinse the grain. This process, called sparging, can also be done with the aluminum foil, or can be accomplished with the setup I use (built into the lid of the large igloo cooler is a set of small pvc pipes with small holes. The holes sprinkle water on top of the grain that doesn't cause any channels).

After collecting the wort (almost an hour), the kettle is moved to the stove and it's time to boil. This process is trickier than it sounds, as this is when boilovers can occur. Proteins in the wort coagulate as the liquid heats up, and form a foam that can rise and go over the top as the wort comes to a boil. Notice in the photo I've got my spray nozzle from the sink in hand. Spraying cold water on the foam keeps it from rising over the kettle and making a mess of the stove. Once the boilover is prevented, it's time to add the hops.

In this case, I added 3 oz of hops at the start of the boil, and they stay in for 60 minutes. The longer hops are in the boil, the more bitterness they contribute to the beer. This bitterness is measured in units called International Bittering Units (IBUs). When hops are added late in the boil, they add flavor and aroma. The longer they stay in the boiling liquid the more the aroma and flavor is boiled off and evaporates with the steam.

Finally it's time to cool the wort, this can be accomplished by submerging the kettle in an ice bath or with a wort chiller. I use a wort chiller. When it's down to about 65 degrees, I transfer the wort to a sanitized bucket and pitch a packet of yeast from a homebrew store - you can also get them online. Then it's into the temperature-controlled fridge in the living room - where it stays at a cozy 68 degrees for a week or two.

That's about it - for those of you interested in the specific recipe:

Amount	Item	Type	% or IBU
10.00 lb	Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)	Grain	90.91 %
0.50 lb	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)	Grain	4.55 %
0.50 lb	Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)	Grain	4.55 %
1.00 oz	Cascade [8.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)	Hops	-
3.00 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min)	Hops	51.2 IBU
1.00 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (15 min)	Hops	8.5 IBU
1.00 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min)	Hops	6.2 IBU
1.00 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (5 min)	Hops	3.4 IBU
1 Pkgs	English Ale (White Labs #WLP002)	Yeast-Ale

Do I Trust the Lakers?

Skip Bayless brought something up on first take this morning... Do I trust the Lakers?

OK, maybe he wasn't really asking me exactly, but I'll answer him anyways. No. I don't trust the Lakers one little bit. I have hated watching the games lately, and have been lucky that there is good college basketball to satisfy my hoops desires. My friends and family know a few things about me, and right up there near the top is that I'm a huge Lakers fan. So these next few words are going to hurt me.

I haven't been impressed with how the Lakers have handled themselves ever since the Christmas Day game against Cleveland. Apart from one player, we all know who that is, the team has been rocked with inconsistency. Specifically the other guards have been disappointing as hell. Jordan Farmar continues to develop as an offensive threat, but he is insanely streaky and often looks lost on defense. Derek Fisher is no longer the one-on-one defender he used to be, and he takes too many bad shots. His shotmaking never used to be a problem because he was knocking them down, but now it feels as though he's chucking it up and clanking like never before. As for Shannon Brown, I love the athleticism, but teams are able to take him off his game just by playing a touch of defense. He was a force last season because he was constantly left alone as other teams didn't respect him. Now that teams know they have to pay a modicum of attention to the guy, he's much less effective.

Up front, Ron Artest has not been what we all had hoped he would be. So he plays good one-on-one defense, big deal. Defense is a team thing, just ask the Boston Celtics. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were key cogs in a championship defense because the Celtics focused on the team concept. PAUL PIERCE AND RAY ALLEN! (OK... KG, James Posey, and Rajon Rondo all played big parts in that championship team and they are all great defenders, but still... Pierce and Allen were laughable defenders before that season) What good is it when you have a great one-on-one guy like Artest, but everybody else is asleep? Same goes for Kobe - who cares that he sometimes gets in that lock-down maniac  mode where he squats down and hikes up his shorts and starts licking his lips? It doesn't matter if he forces a guy baseline if Pau Gasol is going to wave him by like a Matador. I'm afraid to even mention Artest's offense. How can an athlete his size barely be able to dunk? His severe lack of elevation is a problem, as he is consistently denied medium-difficulty layups by the rim. He gets blocked by the rim. How embarassing.

Pau Gasol, ugh. If he isn't a consistent part of the Lakers attack, then he starts to lose interest. Once he starts to lose interest, he starts to miss shots. The best thing for him and for the Lakers is to feed him early and often. He's a "kick them while they're down" sort of player that loves stepping on the throats of other teams, but only if it's in the midst of a full-out rout. These numbers are arbitrary, but say there's three minutes left in a close game and Gasol has had 12-15 shots all game, do I trust him to handle his business on the low block when he's facing double teams? No. I don't. Last season he was able to find a cutting Lamar Odom over and over in the hi-low game, but that seems to have vanished.

Speaking of Lamar Odom... actually, no I'd rather not. Good rebounder, spotty defender, spotty shooter, all-around enigma. Will I ever figure him out? No.

Andrew Bynum... will he play? Will he play hard? All we have is question marks surrounding LA's starting center.

What it all boils down to is this - I miss Trevor Ariza. How many big plays did that young man make during last year's playoffs? How many bad shots did Ron Artest jack up and miss during last year's playoffs? If it were up to me, I'd take Ariza 10 times out of 10 in a trade. He was an x-factor, and a game-changer. He had a Rondo-like tendency to poke the ball away from defenders, and his attitude was infectious. He inspired a thievery competition (this is not figurative language, he literally was in a competition for most steals with Kobe and Jordan Farmar) that got all the guys active on the defensive end. When Shannon Brown came over in the Radmonovic trade, he got in on the act too. Does anything get a crowd more pumped up than a pick-pocket steal that leads to a fast break and an Ariza/Bryant/Brown thunder dunk? Or how about the times those steals led to Kobe or Farmar pulling up for three (they could do that because there were three guys running the break with them) and drilling a fast-break dagger. Those are game-changing plays.

The game-changing days are over in Los Angeles.

Alright - perhaps I've been a bit harsh. If you read this far (which you haven't, because I have no readers) you are probably starting to wonder where the stats are to support my fears. Well, they aren't there. Statistically this is a good team. I think the biggest glaring stat would be the bench production, or lack thereof, but at the end of the day this team still has the most wins in a demanding Western Conference. That says a lot. I'm just not going to bet my life on them repeating as champions, and that causes me more stress than it should. I need a beer.