Beer Drinkers For Obama

On the 19th of October at a new beer bar in KPH I will with a few other brewers (including Shaun Hill of Nørrebro) offer 1 keg of beer to support a fun event known as, "BEER DRINKERS FOR OBAMA" , I will bring a cask of a dry hopped American Pale Ale. I hope to see alot of friends there to support Obama and perhaps have a beer with me as you may have heard I am out of here at the end of the month...

I cant think of a better way to promote US politics and beer at the same time!

here is the link to the event: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gshs8y

Location: See www.blackswan.dk

Moving back to Italy...

Finally I am able to announce that I will be moving to Italy the 1st of November. I will be joining my friend and fellow brewer Leonardo DiVincezio of Birra Del Borgo- http://www.birradelborgo.it/ I will be taking over as brewing Director and will be responsible for the day to day productions and the brewery expansion, as well as a new product line. I have been eagerly awaiting my return to Italy and at the same time look forward to a continued involvement at Gourmet Bryggeriet in Denmark as a project consultant.

Hopefully I will be frequently seen in and around Copenhagen in the future and I always have a few more irons in the fire. As I said when I left Italy "I will be back"... I hope the same is true for Denmark.

I will miss seeing my coworkers at Gourmet Bryggeriet, I will miss seeing my Danish friends. I welcome any one traveling to Italy to get in contact with me for a beer!

(hopefully this will turn into a Rome - winter / Spring, Denmark Summer / Fall....;-)

Ungstrup's Reserve Release Party!

So if you can recall we made a special beer for a special person, Jens Ungstrup has achieved 10,000 beer ratings on ratebeer.com So I invited him to come and brew a special beer with me and we will try to make it something special for his tastes. He was interested in a smoked beer with over 10% alcohol, hence Smoked Barley Wine. The beer was brewed back in early march, left to mature a bit and now ready to let the public try it and hopefully they can give it a good rating!

Thursday night at Brewpub Køpenhaven after 17.00 the beer will become available for consumption. I will be there along with I hope many other Local beer lovers. So I look forward to that.

This beer's proceeds have been promised to Jens's friend who helps remove land mines in Angola. Here is more info if you can understand it in Danish: http://www.noedhjaelp.dk/sider_paa_hjemmesiden/her_arbejder_vi/afrika/angola/det_goer_vi

Here is Jens's announcement:
Ungstrup’s Reserve
Ølfabrikken/Gourmetbryggeriet har brygget denne øl i anledning af at Jens Ungstrup 8. Marts 2008 blev den første ølanmelder i verden til at offentliggøre 10.000 ølanmeldelser. De 10.000 anmeldelser er tilgængelige på www.RateBeer.com.
Øllen blev brygget 8. Marts og har lagret siden for at modne, men bør kunne holde sig mange år fremover.
Øllen er en Smoked Barley Wine brygget af: Pilsner malt og røgmalt, såvel Bamberg som peated, brun farin og Mt. Hood humle. Den holder 10,3% alcohol. Ølstilen er valgt af Jens og har været et flerårigt ønske fra hans side om at smage en røget Barley Wine.
Dog har der så vidt vides tidligere været brygget noget lignende 2 gange i verden, også begge gange som en specialøl tilgængelig i et begrænset tidsrum.
Der er brygget 1000 liter af øllen, som vil være tilgængelig på nogle af landets bedste barer og i nogle af landets bedste ølbutikker henholdsvis på fad og flaske.
Al overskuddet fra salg af øllet går til Folkekirkens Nødhjælps arbejde med minerydning i Angola.
Baggrund
www.Ratebeer.com er verdens største øldatabase med over 80.000 forskellige øl fra 8400 forskellige bryggerier registreret, som har næsten 1,8 millioner anmeldelser, foretaget af mange tusinde brugere fra hele verden. Danmark er det næstmest aktive land på RateBeer kun overgået af USA. Det skyldes blandt andet den eksplosion af nye danske bryggerier og nye danske øl, som vi har set over de seneste år, men også at internet penetrationen er blandt verdens højeste og at der findes et meget stærkt netværk blandt de danske brugere af RateBeer.

Brewing a Fresh Hopped Beer

Hello, it's been a while with anything news worthy and well it was a nice summer here in Denmark ...

I have decided to finally brew a "wet hopped" beer Euro style. (Since I can’t really get a hold of wet hops from the USA). I am at the moment mashed in for the one time brewing of this beer. I will hope to make 25hl of this beer which I haven’t a name decided yet but I’m tinkering with these 2... Hopfenzupfer meaning hop picking or Hopfenhammer which means Great hops. I will hope to have this beer ready for the European Beer Festival in Copenhagen, so I will have to push it a bit.

A few details about what I'm doing:

The beer will be a simple Pilsner or "Kellerbier" which will be the frame for the massive amount of hops going into the brew. I will use over 50kg of wet hops Hallertau Mittelfruher type this hop is a wonderful aroma type. I picked them up this morning around 1030 in a little town not far from Munich, I then proceeded directly to the brewery in Roskilde (10hours later) I am starting the brew. The reason I am not waiting until tomorrow is that these hops don’t last long unless they are dried... Hence the name “Wet Hop”. They weigh quite a bit more than dried hops so the 50kg I use is more like 10 -15 kg of dried hops. I wish you all could smell the inside of my car! I was loving it all the way home.

I will update about this beer and I am eagerly waiting to taste it....

formed pellicle - Sour beer project

Well its been a while since I have updated the sour beer project, but these things do take time. The pH has been steadily dropping its around 3.3pH at the moment. My goal is 3.0pH.

It has formed a rather attractive pellicle as you can see it the photos. The smell is there as well, but still it's going to be a while before its ready to bottle.... then it will take some more time to naturally carbonate. But I am patient.

Interview in Italian

My good freind from Rome (Andrea Turco) who also has a blog has begun a series of interviews regarding beer and Italy.
www.cronachedibirra.it