The Dark Side of Craft Beer

The Dark Side of Craft Beer

Last Friday I undertook an exploration to Waterloo to check out the Patio at the always fantastic Beertown, The Patio looks out on to a square along the main street and looks to be one of the better ones in the twin Cities of KW. Sadly the weather decided it wasn't going to cooperate and we had to locate indoors to avoid the ghastly showers, I'll get on that Patio one day soon. Beertown usually have four seasonal beers on tap, a great feature I like to check out as there's usually at least one I've never had the privilege to try. Luckily for me this time there were two on offer I had never sampled before the first one I opted for, also the inspiration for this blog, was Granville Island Robson Island Hefeweizan.

This guy knows about the Dark Side

Using my always unreliable Blackberry I tried to check into this Hefeweizan on Untappd and for what ever reason it kept crashing out, or so I thought. I ended up with this beer checked in about 5 times on my feed quite by accident. Then something happened that got me thinking, a comment was left on one of my unfortunate check ins that was along the lines of 'Molson own's Granville and Molson-Coors make Rikard's White so they are just Craft Washing'. Now I appreciate the comment was obviously tongue in cheek but it got me to thinking about Craft Brewers who are backed by a major Brewery. 

Probably the most well known Craft Brewer that is backed in Ontario is Creemore Springs. They were bought out in 2005 by the Molson Coors Brewing Company. In turn Creemore bought out Granville Island in 2009. So that's two Craft Brewers now owned by a major corporation and it has left me somewhat conflicted. On the one hand I love to support the Ontario Craft Brewers because I think it's a great idea to keep the money generated in Ontario so the breweries can survive and are encouraged to come up with new and exciting brews for us to try. Another benefit is as craft beer becomes more popular it creates more jobs for people that want to break into craft beer as a living,

Another Dark Side

Now on the other hand I can't help but feel for people that own their own brewery. Creemore happens to make some of my favorite beers, so should I just stop drinking them now they are owned by Molson? If I owned a brewery and believed I made the best beer in the world I would want as many people as possible drinking it. Sadly for the small guys the only way to do this is to get the big players involved. They can provide the financial security and resources most craft brewers can only dream of and if I owned a business financial security would be a hard deal to turn down. Granville Island is located in Vancouver and I'm 100% positive I would not have discovered their beers without me having to travel out west to sample them. Then this made me think again, is that not part of the beauty of craft beer? Finding yourself somewhere new and trying all the new local beers you've never tried, are we going to be spoiled by the major players buying up the small guys and making them accessible?

This could turn into quite a big issue if Craft Beer carries on exploding the way it is. I can understand why a brewer would accept an offer to be bought out by a major brewery but would it be taking away from the soul of craft brewing? It's a thorny subject and one I'm going to keep an eye on, hopefully on the Patio at Beertown.

Prost!

EyeBeerHolder

Brewing up a Grodzinski

Brewing up a Grodzinski

So here it goes my first Blog on my Beer adventures. I started Home Brewing about 2 years ago after visiting Creemore Springs to sample all their quality brews. It got me into thinking how may different types of beer there were to try and how here in Ontario in can be quite difficult to get decent beer from Micro Brewery's, although I am a big fan of Ontario Craft Brewers and I hope to bring you some blogs on their Beers in the future.

To the Brew

Name: Grodzinski

Style: Smoked Polish Wheat

About: This is the traditional smoked wheat beer of Poland. It has fallen by the wayside in recent years but Home Brewers are helping it to make a comeback. 

Ingredients: 

WLP011 European Ale Yeast

1 lb Briess Smoked Malt

1 lb Carared© Malt

6 lbs Wheat DME

1 oz Spalt Hops

Additons:

Irish Moss

Yeast Nutrient

Ingredients

The Process: I generally just do partial mash as I find I don't have the time for full grain at this point in time. 

I started out by bringing around 3 gallons of spring water up to about 68OC. After Milling the Smoked Malt & Carared© I added them to the pot and made sure the temperature stayed at about the same temperature. 

Start of the Grain Tea

I let the grains rest for about steep for 30 minutes ensuring the temperature never dropped below 65. After that I let the grains drain off before washing them in steeping water and removing. I brought the pot up to the boil before removing from the heat and adding in the Wheat DME. Once the DME had fully dissolved I brought the wort up to the boil once again and added the Spalt Hops. 

Once all the Foam had cleared

I Kept the boil rolling for 45 minutes before adding the Irish Moss and Yeast Nutrient for the final 15 Minutes. Once the boil was done I removed it from the heat and cooled it for 30 minutes with a wort chiller before adding the wort to the Primary Fermenter. I took the OG reading as 1.052 a little below the .56 I was shooting for, but I did use  a little less DME then the recipe I was following so it makes sense.

As Always the final part was to add the yeast, I had made a yeast starter the night before so added the slurry in the mix and decided it would be better to use a blow off hose as opposed to an Airlock, it proved to be the right decision as within 24 hours the blow off was bubbling away.

Fermenting

I left the Beer in the primary for 5 days before deciding to move in into a secondary as the bubbling seemed to have slowed to a sufficient amount. 

Once the Secondary was filled the Beer was looking a good cloudy colour I would expect from a Wheat Beer and also had a slight smoky smell. I managed to save some of the Yeast to hopefully re-pitch in another brew. 

Beer!!!

So there it is. It still has another couple of days in the Secondary before I move to kegging it. If you've made it this far then thanks for reading and please add any comments or contact me at @EyeBeerHolder.

PROST!!