Beer in the Making

The Belgian's love their flavorful beers. Here's an advertising beer wagon that I saw in Belgium in 2017.

Beer in the Making

documentary

by Gregory E. Larson

          I have great memories of tasting Dutch and Belgian beers in northern Europe, where beer is much more popular than wine. Touring beer factories has also been high on my list of places to go. When I overheard two of my cycling friends discussing the home-brewing of beer, I became intrigued. We were near the end of a ride, and had stopped with friends at an outdoor pizza and beer café.

          “We ought to make a batch of Winter Belgian Ale,” Kirk said, “That would be fun.”

          Immediately I asked them if I could witness the process to write a blog. I thought maybe I could learn something, as well as enjoy some tasty craft-style beer.

          Kirk asked, “Have you ever brewed any beer?”

          “No, I haven’t, so it would be a new experience for me.”

         “The most important rule is to have fun.”

          Dan chimed in, “The second most important rule is to keep everything clean. You don’t want to contaminate the process. Ugly things might grow and destroy the batch.”

          Kirk added, “We’ll want to do the entire process, including naming the beer and designing the labels.”

          On our next bike ride, we stopped at Martin City Coffee Co. for some coffee and a bite to eat. Five minutes after we finished, we rode our bikes around the corner and stopped at Martin City Brewing Co. As we looked over the beer offerings, we noticed one that was titled, “Abbey Belgian Dubbel.”

          I asked Kirk and Dan what was “double” in the beer and they replied in unison, “It’s double the hops.”

          Kirk ordered it and gave his assessment. “It’s slightly sweet, good hop flavors and not too dry.”

          That’s when I also learned there is an IBS (International Bitter System) rating for each beer at a brewery. My head started to spin – not from drinking a beer but from trying to understand the whole brewing process. It sounded complicated.

          Kirk suggested we meet soon at the Brew Lab in Overland Park and taste different craft brews, then purchase the supplies to make a batch. A few days later we met at the Brew Lab and we each ordered a “flight” of four different beer tastings (4 oz. each) and shared how each tasted.

          “Ales are the easiest to home brew,” Kirk said, “I brought this Belgian Dark Ale recipe from my brew notebook. We could do a variation on it.” Dan agreed.

          Next, we gathered the items for the brew recipe. I followed Dan (the expert) around as he selected two different barley grains (one of them was roasted barley) and two types of Amber Malt Extract (carmelized), two types of hops (Willamette and Cascade) and some dextrose (sugar). Last, but not least, we started looking at the yeasts. One of them was Belgian Abbey Yeast. It wasn’t the yeast listed on the recipe, but we agreed that since we found the Abbey Belgian Dubbel in Martin City, this might get us close to the elusive “perfect” batch that every brewer seeks.

          Kirk said, “Next week we’ll spend a couple of hours mixing the batch, then we’ll let it set and ferment about a week and we’ll transfer it to a carboy (giant glass container). If you don’t allow enough time for fermenting, it may continue to ferment too much in the bottle.”

          “That’s not a good thing,” said Dan. “Exploding bottles.”

          The following week, at Bell Street Brewing (Kirk’s house in the kitchen) we mixed the batch. Kirk and Dan had been through the process umpteen times (56 batches, to be exact), so everything was planned to the smallest detail. Kirk lowered the barley bag into 160°F water.  Once the barley flavor transferred into the water, he pulled the bag and we added the two containers of malt extract. Then the three of us sat around for the next hour and drank beer while the malt extract boiled. The most difficult job was checking the pot every ten minutes to make sure the malt didn’t stick to the container. The flavoring hops were added and ten minutes before the end of the boil, they added the bittering hops and a small amount of Irish Moss to clarify the liquid. Seemed like hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo to me, but Kirk and Dan said it was important.

          “Now we have to cool the wort (pronounced vert) down from 160°F to 90°F as quickly as possible.”

          We carried the wort down to his work room where he had a water-cooled, spiral-copper, heat-exchanger tube placed in a special five-gallon plastic container. We poured the wort into the container and set it in a large sink, then packed twenty pounds of ice around it. Watching the ice melt and the temperature drop reminded me of making homemade ice cream with my dad. Within ten minutes we hit the 90° mark on the thermometer so we pulled the container out of the sink and vigorously stirred in the Belgian Abbey yeast. Once the foaming ceased, Kirk tested the specific gravity and put the lid on the container. There was a relief valve that fit on top of the lid. As the fermenting process started, the valve would show the bubbles of the fermenting process.

View of the spiral copper heat-exchanger

          We finished our store-bought beers and agreed to get back together to do the bottling process.

          “The specific gravity reading of the liquid has to drop for 1.045 to 1.012,” said Kirk, “That’s when it’s time to bottle the beer.” A week later, he transferred the fermenting wort into the glass carboy. At that point in time, the liquid has become young beer.

          Two weeks later we met again to bottle the beer. Kirk invited some additional cycling friends to watch the finishing process. It turned out to be a bit of a party, with favorite beers, snacks, and shared stories of days past. It seems the older we get the more stories we have to share, and the beer unlocks the door in our mind where the stories flow out.

          But – work was at hand during this fun gathering. Dan added the dextrose and brought it to a boil to add to the fermented wort. While he was working on that, Kirk set me up with inspecting bottles and cleaning them. First, I had to look into each bottle and point it toward the light. If there were any smudges in the bottom, it became a reject. Clean, clean, clean, I kept telling myself.

          Next, I began work at the bottle cleaning station and drying tree. Placing each bottle upside down on a tube, I pushed the bottle down twice to pump the PBW (powdered brewery wash which is a patented alkali cleaner) into the bottle, and then put it on the drying tree.

Glass carboy, bottle cleaning station and drying tree

          It was a warm autumn afternoon and the garage door was open. We all sat around, drank beer and told stories while I continued the bottle cleaning process.

          Kirk readied the beer with the siphon tube and we began to fill the beer into the fifty bottles. As I filled each bottle with the siphon tube, I passed them over to Kirk, who used a bottle capper to set each cap in place. Voila! With the caps on, the fermentation would continue in the bottles for two to three weeks.

* * * *

In late October two bike groups merged on a Saturday ride. All of a sudden Kirk, Dan and I realized we were pedaling beside each other. Executive decisions needed to be made. Kirk said, “The beer is almost ready for tasting. We need to come up with a name so I can design the labels.”

We agreed the name should have something to do with the pandemic and the election close at hand. We’d been throwing around names for several weeks to no avail. Suddenly we realized the bike groups would soon split and Kirk would ride towards home. The pressure was on to come up with the name.

          I blurted out “Unmasked! What do you think?” They both agreed and Kirk sped off for home. Funny how the mind can struggle for weeks to solve a problem and suddenly the solution just comes out of nowhere. Maybe we should solve more problems while pedaling. My hope was the beer would be as good as the effort and the name.

           Finally, it was time to taste the beer. Kirk thought it was a bit early, but we wanted to make sure it wasn’t a bad batch. I stopped by late one afternoon and we opened a bottle. The flavor was good, but there wasn’t much foam or carbonation.

          “Maybe we tasted it too soon,” he said. “I think it will continue to improve over the next several days. Let’s think about Friday or Sunday to do the real taste. The weather is going to hold through Sunday, so we can sit out on the driveway for the tasting party.

          The Chiefs were beginning the second half of their Sunday game against the Panthers as I drove over to Kirk’s house. The streets seemed ghostly empty with so many people at home watching the game.  Once I arrived, Kirk turned on the radio of his car in the garage and dialed in the football game. I kept one ear towards the radio and began putting glue on the labels, then fixed them to the bottles. The label looked great with masks all around a bottle marked UNMASKED. In small letters were the words, post-election Belgian Black Ale.

The "Unmasked" label design

          The moment of truth came when we opened one of the larger bottles. Kirk poured it into a large plastic cup. Fizz! There was a good foam head, too. He poured some more in cups for us all to taste and said, “Let’s inaugurate it!”

          I took a sip. The taste was very good. Nice hops, and a bit of smoky, somewhat toasty taste. Dan said that came from the roasted barley we used. We quickly labeled the bottles and sat back to listen to the end of the football game, while other friends stopped by to have a taste.

Dan and Greg adding the "Unmasked" beer labels

          “TOUCHDOWN, KANSAS CITY!” The announcer made sure everyone knew the Chiefs had scored. More homemade beer flowed and the game continued with the Chiefs squeaking out a win to put their record at 8-1.

          At the end of the warm, autumn afternoon, we split up the bottles and I brought home two six-packs and two large bottles. I’m going to savor and share them with friends and family. I’ll have one or two on those cold days when I can sit by the fire and watch the football game and sip the UNMASKED homemade beer.