VOLUME XX, ISSUE 3! FALL OF 2009

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FOAM: LOVE, HATE AND INDIFFERENCE: .

Foam: It’s great on top of a beer when it’s in a frosty mug

sliding halfway across a maplewood bar from a

cheerful bartender wearing a vest -- but it sucks when it boils out of your stockpot

onto your glass-top range, or blows your airlock to the

ceiling, while pouring out of your fermenter like some crazed baking-soda-and-vinegar volcano. Ahh, to have the one without the

other, *that* is The Dream....

Well, me droogs, Main Street has the answer... We are now stocking anti-foaming drops that have *no* effect on your finished beer, but can be used to prevent foam-overs in your

starter cultures, in your boilpot or in your fermenter.

“Just a drop or three, and your worries are gone.” (Man,

that brings back some crazy flashbacks... Whoa...)

De-foam your life for mere $6.95 per vial.

The Main Street Brewer

News from the StorefrontFOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: Although I usually shirk the whole

Web 2.0 “social media” interactivity thingy, (much preferring to post my messages around town using plain old eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch paper stapled onto greasy, old telephone poles), I have to say: I’ve found a friend in Twitter.

For those unfamiliar, Twitter allows me to send out quick, short instant messages to people that want to “follow” my posts. Over the past few months, I have been able to send out “tweets” about used equipment in the store, when to harvest hops, good beers on the market, interesting wine articles I’ve read and new items that Main Street is beginning to stock. I’ve even “tweeted” about joining Twitter (although at that point nobody was following me so that tweet really went nowhere). Twitter allows *you* (yes, you!) to get updated, quick bits of information about the

store and about stories of local fermentationary interest. And, best of all, it forces me to be short and concise. (“The horror..... the horror.....”)

If you sign up for Twitter, you can receive my messages directly as I send them, but you can also go to my website where I have posted a feed of my latest tweets if you just don’t want to sign up for an account. You can find that feed on my blog page at mainbrew.com. Call or e-mail me if you have any questions about Twitter.

MORE NEW STUFF: It seems like t’is the season for new and exciting things here in the world of beer and wine-making.

We are now carrying chocolate extract for adding into your beer to help you create that perfect chocolate mocha porter or stout. For the purist, we also now have cocoa nibs, the chocolatey heart of the cocoa tree. This is like adding rich dark chocolate into your beer - cocoa nibs add lots of flavor and aroma, with a complex bitterness. Mmmm, mmm, good. See The Page Known as Four for a Holiday recipe.

We also have finally found great - and affordable - grape punchers. No, this is not a fruit-hating passive-aggressive fighter, but an actual stainless steel “pusher” that enables you to tamp your floating grape skins down into your fermenting must. A necessity for anyone who has a large fermenter full of red grapes AND the need to keep the cap pushed down into the liquid with a minimum of fuss. A 2009 bargain at only $24.95 apiece.

And be sure to check out Page Two for some exciting new 2009 hop information....

229 East Main StreetHillsboro OR 97123(503) 648-4254www.mainbrew.com

VOLUME XX, ISSUE 3! FALL OF 2009

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INDIA BLACK ALEThere’s lots of dark sides, she once told me; this was after she

realized how late it was. There’s the dark side of the Moon. (“There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it’s all dark....”) There’s the dark side of The Force. (“You underestimate the power of the Dark Side, young Skywalker...”) And there’s even the yang, she laughed. Curled eternally, sideways, against the pure whiteness of the yin. “Whatever,” I thought. It was 1983, the middle of the night, and, between us, we had only three Rolling Rocks left ...

-%om Kev’s Book of Delusions, Vol IV, page 132.I.B.A. Is it a new style? Can there even *be* such a

thing as a new style in today’s world, or is it just a weird hybrid, a freak of blending and brewing hubris?

What even makes a style of beer? Really. What defines a “style of beer” as a true style? Is it necessary for a style to be built upon a long line of historical precedent, that it must come from decades and centuries of regional fine-tuning based on water chemistry, hop availability and/or culinary preferences? Or can a style just be thrown together in a moment of brewing misdirection? Can I toss ten diverse ingredients into a beer, persuade three or four of my friends to brew it as well, and then call the monstrosity I have created “Kevbier?” This is a new style, brother. Let’s write a book about it.

Or is a chimera always a chimera? Those are questions, I fear, made for greater Men than

I. So let’s leave the moral and ethical issues about India Black Ales to the PhB’s (Philosophers of Beer), who spend their lives pondering such liquid dilemmas. “Mine is not to question here, mine is but to drink my beer....” And let’s figure out what exactly an IBA is.

India Black Ales - to put it as clearly as possible - are a hoppy, American beer with a noticeable roast flavor and dark color. Aroma should be a mix of hops and roast. Flavor should lean toward the hops, with a dry bitter finish and a roasty edge. But not quite as roasty as a stout or a porter. Color should be - hmmmm, I’d imagine - black.

They have started to spring up in small microbreweries around the country. It seems like the East Coast is ahead of the curve as far as brewing IBA’s go, but they are clearly being brewed in all sorts of tiny “nano-breweries” around the country, which seem to be filling the hand-crafted void left by the ever-burgeoning “micro” breweries.

IBA’s, for all their flavor and intensity, take a fine hand to create, because if you under-roast them, you have a red IPA. If you over-roast them, you have a hoppy porter or stout. If you under-hop them, you have a malty brown ale,

or a light stout. They fall within a f a i r l y prec i se flavor, color and a roma prof i l e . Heck , maybe they really are a style after all. This recipe will produce a stan-dard 21st Century

India Black Ale. Using fresh, 2009 extra-aromatic hops (which are in the store right now!!), this will produce a great Fall drinking beer -- whether it is a real damn stye or not.

Darkside I.B.A.9.5 lbs. Light Malt Extract5 oz. 55L English Crystal Malt3 oz. 120L Crystal Malt6 oz. Carafa Malt2 oz. Roast Barley1.0 oz. Zeus Hops...................60 minutes1.0 oz. Zeus Hops...................20 minutes0.5 oz. Citra Hops.................. 15 minutes0.5 oz. Citra Hops...................10 minutes0.5 oz. Citra Hops.....................5 minutes0.5 oz. Citra Hops....................dry-hoppedWhite Labs Dr y Eng l i sh Ale Yea st , o r

Nottingham, or SafAle US-05 or yeast of choice.Bottle with one cup of corn sugar, or as usual for

you.Let sit for two to three weeks in the bottle for

best flavor. Cheers!

! 2009 HOPS AT MAINSTREETWe have recently been receiving our new (2009) shipments of hops here at Main Street, and not

only are they more aromatic, more sticky and more flavorful than ever, but the price has dropped nearly in half!! Lower prices, better quality and plentiful supply. Life is good. PS: We also have a new hop in the store, right now: Citra. This hop has a great papaya/mango/tropical fruit character. Very unique. Great for pale ales, IPA’s and even hoppy wheats!!

VOLUME XX, ISSUE 3! FALL OF 2009

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OXYGEN: FEEL THE BURN, BABY....

Winemakers hate oxygen. Yeah, they kind of sort of need it to live and breathe, and it’s, you know, pretty handy when they’re trying to light a fire, but mostly they view O2 as this evil spirit endlessly trying to infiltrate its way into their sealed fermenters and destroy their precious alcohol.

But what exactly is happening with this invisible gas and how can it be stopped. Let’s take a look: Oxygen, when you get right down to it, is a pretty nasty element. If it weren’t for some serious anti-oxidant mechanisms that we have evolved through the years, oxygen would probably kill us. But, instead, the human body has figured out a way to use oxygen’s volatility as a “controlled” energy source. It fuels our body, and that’s the reason we need to breathe it 24/7. We’ve harnessed its destructive power to produce energy for us.

The “problem” with oxygen is that it has only six electrons spinning around in its outer orbit shell. To achieve a happy, stable feeling, it wants eight. So

oxygen f loat s a round , bumping into whatever it can, trying to “steal” electrons from the outer shells of other elements. Oxygen does this by grabbing onto the outer shell of whatever other element or compound it meets. It then either strips those electrons away, or bonds itself to the other substance, producing a new compound. The other substance is then said to have become “oxidized.”

Oxygen is an equal-opportunity thief. It doesn’t really care where it steals electrons from. Give it some iron and it will “burn” it into rust. Cut open an apple and it will very rapidly oxidize the unprotected inner cells (browning and rusting them). Hit your hand with a hammer and your blood vessels will open up pouring oxygen into the bruised area, making it inFLAMEd, with the feeling that it is burning; it is. Your hand is being oxygen burnt.

So what does all this have to do with your precious? The alcohol molecule (composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) has extra electrons that wandering oxygen atoms are more-than-happy to grab. Allowing oxygen to get in contact with your alcohol will allow this “oxidation burn” to occur. When oxygen touches alcohol it “steals” two hydrogen atoms from the alcohol molecule (making H2O) which then reconfigures the alcohol molecule into an aldehyde. This basically “rusts” the wine, turning it brown, while also changing the flavor for the worse.

OK, so how do we prevent oxidation? The easiest way is to keep your fermenters topped up as much as possible. A half-filled carboy (while the wine is in long-term aging) is a recipe for disaster. Not only will it allow the wine to oxidize, but the oxygen that gets in (even through the airlock!) will allow bacteria and molds to thrive across the surface.

Use metabisulfite. Don’t be scared! One-quarter teaspoon per five gallons of wine, added every few months, will help keep the wine safe and oxidation-free. That’s why wineries use it!

Never splash your wine while siphoning.And use the right type of fermenters. Plastic five-

gallon water bottles (Type 2 plastic) are NOT good for long-term aging. They can *only* be used for primary fermentations. ( And, rea&y, they are not even very good for that.) Use glass carboys, (Type 1) BetterBottles, or sealed stainless steel fermenters for long-term aging of wine, (this is while you are waiting for it to settle clear). Type 2 plastics allow oxygen-penetration, and we all now know what that means.

If you have any questions, be sure to stop by the store and talk to us...

Floating Lid Stainless Steel Fermenters: For the home vintner making larger quantities of wine, we are now carrying adjustable height stainless fermenters straight from Italy. The come in 100 liter, 200 liter, 400 liter and larger. They can also be used for beer, mead, cider or any other fermentables....

VOLUME XX, ISSUE 3! FALL OF 2009

I made my first chocolate beer in 1989. It involved a fistful of melting Hershey bars, a stockpot brimming with roasted malts and a Mounds bar that I now sort of regret. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and it showed.

After I bottled it, I waited patiently for four weeks and then brought it over to a friend. He was an old German guy who had a house by the beach and he lived and drank by Reinheitsgebot. This is the man, God bless him, who actually served me my very f i r s t German - s ty le Hefeweizen, back in The Day, long before most Americans had ever sampled a “real”

hefeweizen. He was a German purist, who would spit on the ground and pity the fool who didn’t know how to pour a hefeweizen the true Bavarian way, rolling the bottle around on the table and inverting it quickly over the tall wheat beer glass. And only a true wheat beer glass. To each beer belonged a glass, I quickly learned. And American beers? Rice and corn were for the schwein, he would lecture me; not for das bier.

Needless to say, he was more than skeptical of chocolate in beer, his Bavarian-raised mind seemingly unable to wrap itself around the pairing.

As if he had stumbled into some alternate reality filled with non-Euclidian geometry, I feared the combination might drive him insane, babbling in his madness. But he liked chocolate, he loved beer. He trusted me. I watched him slowly pour one. He drank it; he asked for another. And then another. For not having any idea what I was doing, it wasn’t half bad. Giving me just enough inspiration to start my Coconut Curry Blonde. But that’s another story.

Winter Chocolate Nut Porter

9 lbs. Amber Malt Extract8 oz. English Crystal 55L8 oz. 120L Crystal Malt10 oz. Chocolate Malt10 oz Brown Malt2 oz. Carafa Malt1.0 oz. Perle Hops............. 60 minutes0.5 oz. Perle Hops..............25 minutes0.5 oz. Perle Hops..............15 minutesUse Burton Ale yeast (WLP 023) or SafAle S-04.When racking into secondary, add 4 ounces of

lightly crushed cocoa nibs (in a cheesecloth sock) and let sit for two weeks. Bottle with 7/8 cup of corn sugar, or keg as normal. Let sit for at least four weeks for best flavor. Serve at a Festivus party!

Chocoholics Anonymous:( ( A Twelve Ingredient Program for the Holidays.