Monday, December 31, 2012

"The Art of Beer" Trailer

Last Fall, I met Joshua Lang at a little get together at the Food Beast headquarters in Downtown Santa Ana.  Robyn, Jen and I showed up with a couple kegs of beer and were immediately pouring pints.  Joshua was shooting a video of the impressive musical performance at the party.  Robyn started talking to him and it turned out that he was in the process of shooting a documentary about craft beer with director Oscar Ussery!

Anyways, we exchanged contact cards and got in touch shortly thereafter to shoot some footage of a homebrew day and an interview about the Good Beer Company.  Here's the trailer and here's the full 15 minute film shown at the premier:




Check out their Facebook page for more information: The Art of Beer
The Art of Beer is "a documentary about the cultural impact of craft beer in Southern California. Dir. by Oscar Ussery and Produced by Joshua Lang"

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Julian Brewing Company Brew Day

My brother Bryce was offered the assistant brewer position a few months ago and has brewed several batches on the Julian Brewing Company's 3 barrel brewing system in Julian, California.  Bryce calls me all the time to talk about what he's doing and I've stopped in several times to sample the house ales - and they never disappoint.  Bryce brews under the tutelage of Mike Gabbard of Pizza Port.

Bryce and I collaborated on the recipe over the last couple weeks of November and Bryce, Mike and I spent the day brewing a batch of Double IPA on December 1st.  Pale malt with a pinch of munich, caramalt, and white sugar made up the fermentables in this big beer that should have a light malt background with crisp dryness.  Warrior hops were used for bittering and Citra and Chinook hops were used in ample quantities for flavor and aroma addition.  I snapped a photo after our final hop addition - check out the green hop slime that coated the top of the boil kettle!


Photo: Bryce gets sacks of grain ready for the mill while I weigh out the munich and caramalt.
Photo: Bryce crushes the grain with the malt mill

 Photo: I'm mashing in (we used masks to avoid inhaling grain dust).

   
Photo: Bryce checks the temperature of the mash. We nailed it.


Photo: That's me monitoring the sparge.

Photo: Sparge arm distributes hot water on top of the grain bed.

Photo: I let Bryce do the hard work, like shoveling grain from the mash tun

Photo: Late in the boil, after adding four pounds of hops, the kettle looked like we were brewing green slime...
Photo: Julian Brewing Company's 3 barrel brewery