While they consider expanding their brewing and packaging operations, Colorado brewers should think about making bigger award cases as well. The state’s brewers made a very strong showing at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival, taking home more than 25 medals at the event. Many breweries took home multiple awards. Funkwerks in Fort Collins was named the Small Brewing Company and Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year (an award won in 2009 by Dry Dock Brewing Co. in Aurora). Funkwerks also took two gold medals at the 2012 GABF (see below).

Speaking of Dry Dock, in the Fruit Beer category (58 entries) the brewery took gold with its Dry Dock Apricot Blonde; Dry Dock also received a bronze medal for its S.S. Minnow Mild Ale in the English-Style Mild Ale category (31 entries). Twisted Pine Brewing Co. in Boulder won a bronze medal in the Coffee Beer category (63 entries) with its Big Shot Espresso Stout, and a gold medal for West Bound Braggot in the Specialty Honey Beer category (33 entries).

Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs won a gold medal for its Butt Head Bock in the Bock category (33 entries). Tommyknocker also received a bronze medal for its Colorado IPA Nouveau in the Fresh Hop Ale category (34 entries). If I remember right, I enjoyed quite a lot of the Colorado IPA Nouveau at a beer festival in Central City this summer. It’s mighty tasty (as is the Butt Head Bock).

BJ’s Restaurant and Brewery in Boulder won a gold medal for its Got Beer in the Indigenous Beer category (27 entries). New Planet Beer Company, also in Boulder, received a silver medal in the Gluten-Free Beer category (20 entries) for its Brown.

In the American-Style Brett Ale category (29 entries), the TPS Report from Trinity Brewing Co. in Colorado Springs received a bronze medal. AC Golden Brewing Co. in Golden received a bronze for its Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Stout, entered in the Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout category (65 entries). The Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project in Denver won a silver medal for its Sentience, entered in the Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer category (70 entries).

The Fort Collins Brewery’s Bombastic was the top entry in the Smoke Beer category (50 entries). Also from Fort Collins, CB & Potts Restaurant and Brewery won a gold medal for its 6X Helles, entered in the Munich-Style Helles category (65 entries).

In the Dortmunder or German-Style Oktoberfest category, which had 23 entries, The SandLot from Denver won gold for its Move Back. The SandLot also won gold in the German-Style Wheat Ale category (23 entries) for its Wildpitch Hefeweizen. Keeping it in the family, Coors Brewing Co. from Golden won a bronze medal for its Keystone Light (which I definitely drank a lot of while in college) in the American-Style Lager, Light Lager or Premium Lager category (51 entries).

Equinox Brewing Co. in Fort Collins won a gold medal for its Knight Ryder Munich Dunkel, entered in the European-Style Dunkel category (20 entries). In the International-Style Pale Ale category, Eddyline Brewing in Buena Vista won a gold medal for its River Runners Pale Ale.

In the Extra Special Bitter category (53 entries), Bull & Bush Brewery, just a few blocks from Krameria Estates in Denver, received a silver medal for The Tower E.S.B.

Glenwood Canyon Brewing Co. in Glenwood Springs won a gold medal for its Irish Red in the Irish-Style Red Ale category (48 entries). Rock Bottom Westminster won two medals; the brewery took a silver medal in the Sweet Stout category (32 entries) and a bronze medal for Molly’s Titanic Brown Ale, entered in the English-Style Brown Ale category (46 entries).

Colorado brewers won gold and silver medals in the American-Style Brown Ale category (61 entries); Telluride Brewing Co. took the top spot with its Face Down Brown, and Upslope Brewing Co. in Boulder took second with Upslope Brown Ale.

The state was also well represented in the German-Style Altbier category (35 entries). Grand Junction’s Kannah Creek Brewing Co. took the silver medal with its Land’s End Amber, and Loveland’s Grimm Brothers Brewhouse won bronze with its Little Red Cap.

New Belgium Brewing Co. in Fort Collins won gold in the GABF Pro-Am Competition for its More Fun Blonde (AHA member is Jay Shambo). New Belgium also took the bronze medal in the German-Style Sour Ale category (29 entries) with its NBB Love Felix. Also from Fort Collins, Funkworks won gold for its Deceit in the Belgian-Style Strong Specialty Ale category (51 entries). Funkwerks also won gold for its Saison that was entered in the French- and Belgian-Style Saison category (68 entries); Aspen Brewing Co. from Aspen won a silver medal in the same category.

In the Barley Wine-Style category (51 entries), Strange Brewing Co. in Denver took a bronze medal with its Dr. StrangeLove.

American brewers are still making plenty of IPAs; the American-Style India Pale Ale category had the most entries by far with 203. With only 12 entries, the smallest category was American-Style Dark Lager; the Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout category had 16 entries.

2012 Krameria Estates Oktoberfest

This is the 2012 Krameria Estates Oktoberfest, brewed in March (as a Märzen should be) of this year. We used the recipe in “Brewing Classic Styles” by Jamil Zainasheff and John J. Palmer. It lagered for a couple of months before being bottled in July.

It’s mighty good.

On the brewing calendar this weekend: either a doppelbock or an Irish stout. The Estates’ executive committee will be having discussions, weighing the pros and cons of each, into the early evening hours.

Not much happening yet, but this is only a few minutes after I mixed the flour and water together.

The inset image shows a closeup of the starter on day 3 about an hour after refreshment with more flour and water — we’ve got some fermentation action going on now!

All grain flours contain naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria; mixing the flour with water in the right environment provides a great habitat for those organisms to reproduce. As they process the sugars in the flour, the gases that they expel produce carbon dioxide (the bubbles that cause sourdough to rise) — and the lactobacilli produce lactic acid, which provides sourdough with its tang that I love so dearly.

After three or four days, the yeast and bacteria should have sufficient populations to provide both lift (in the form of carbon dioxide) and flavor (the lactic acid) so that I can make sourdough bread late next week — it’ll be so yummy!

There are many similar processes in the making of beer and bread. Because of the incorporation of grains, water and yeast, beer is often called “liquid bread”; I think bread could be called “solid beer” (but I’ll just call it “bread”).

Sauerkraut is another one of those things that our grandmothers made. And make it they did – Dad remembers the sauerkraut crock in their house as being three feet tall. Both mom and dad remember going into the pantry, scooping out however much was needed for the meal and then placing the plate back on top. What an easy way to have access to a vegetable all winter long.

To dispell stereotypes, sauerkraut is not just a German thing. Neither grandmother who made it had German ancestry. Again, it’s an easy way to preserve a vegetable. It doesn’t involve any cooking, canning or pressure cooking. It’s just cabbage and salt that hang out for awhile and ferment into sauerkraut.

The process for us started on Sept. 26. We searched the Internet for recipes and consulted a Ball canning book. Interestingly, the recipes were divided evenly regarding technique. We decided to go with a combination from the Ball canning book (Ball Blue Book: Guide to Home Canning, Freezing & Dehydration) and this Web site.

We each took a head of cabbage and sliced it as thin as we could. That’s something all the recipes agreed on: slice it as thinly as possible.

Filling the Jars. No, my hands aren't normally that red or wrinkly.

Working with one head of sliced cabbage at a time, in a large bowl (we used the one mom gave me for enjoying popcorn after I left home) we sprinkled about one tablespoon of sea salt over the cabbage. Then I used my hands to mix the salt and cabbage. With the second head, I learned that letting it sit a minute or so between each stir helped to draw out the moisture.

One thing to note: during this process your hands are basically sitting in salt water. If it was just one head of cabbage, it wouldn’t have been a problem. With two heads or more, I’ll be sure to wear gloves next time. Luckily, I didn’t have any cuts on my hands, but they weren’t looking too good toward the end.

Once there’s a fair amount of liquid, the cabbage is ready to be placed in jars. Surprisingly, none of the recipes mentioned sanitizing the jars; just make sure they are clean. We went ahead and sanitized our jars using Star San – a sanitizer we use all the time for brewing. For the jars, we used glass canning jars. Two heads of cabbage filled up two quarts and two pints.

Pinto beans keeping the cabbage in the brine.

Pack the cabbage down into the jars so that the liquid (brine) rises to cover the cabbage.

You can make more brine if needed, but we felt there was enough in the jars. For weighting the cabbage down in the brine, the Ball recipe didn’t have any suggestions; the Web site suggested zip-top bags of water. We were concerned that if one of the bags had a leak, it would dilute the brine. We poured dried pinto beans into small zip-top bags and used that for the weight.

With little bonnets on top, the cabbage is ready to ferment.

To keep out dust, bugs, the cat, whatever, we followed the suggestion from the Web site and used coffee filters and rubber bands. Then we put them on a lid from a cake pan, put them in the pantry and forgot about them until this weekend.

Two days shy of six weeks, we made roast pork, sauerkraut and dumplings (one of my grandmother’s recipes).

The ‘kraut was much crunchier than store-bought, but had good flavor and a greener color. We’re looking forward to trying the other jars to see if time changes the texture and/or flavor. We’ll keep you informed.

The finished product - Sauerkraut.

Homemade cottage cheese and beer

Last Sunday was a busy and productive day at Krameria Estates. The 2011 holiday brew, Wacholder Roggenbock (Juniper Rye Bock), was bottled and we ventured into a new arena: making cottage cheese.

Okay, so the cottage cheese is only new to us. We recently learned that a couple of our grandmothers regularly made cottage cheese. Our parents remembered their mothers making it, as well as an uncle.

In fact, Mom seemed to think that her uncle made better cottage cheese than her mother – so much so that she wouldn’t eat her mom’s. Funny, but it seemed to be that her uncle started making regular stops at the house just to make cottage cheese. After school Mom was often greeted with a bowl of her “uncle’s cottage cheese.” It took a few years, but Mom finally realized that she had been eating her mom’s cottage cheese all that time.

As is often the case, neither Mom nor Dad remembered how their mothers made cottage cheese. All my mom could remember was milk and vinegar. That’s where the beauty of the Internet comes into play.

A quick search revealed a recipe from Alton Brown. It’s a very simple recipe with skim milk, white vinegar and salt. We stopped at a “natural grocery” for supplies.

We’re willing to pay top dollar for organic milk that’s not ultra-pasteurized, but $5.39 for a quart of white vinegar?!? We had plenty of cider vinegar at home that we were sure would do the trick. Plus, I’m pretty sure that both grandmothers only used cider vinegar for all of their pickling and other kitchen needs.

One thing to note about milk: make sure it’s not “ultra-pasteurized.” This is something our grandmothers did not need to worry about. Today, some milk producers pasteurize the milk at super-high temperatures. While that’s certain to kill all the bad stuff, it also kills the good — the stuff you need to make cheese. If it’s ultra-pasteurized, the carton should be marked as such (sometimes you’ll just see UP on the label).

Alton’s recipe for Quick Cottage Cheese: One gallon skim milk, 3/4 C white vinegar, 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt and 1/2 C half-and-half (or heavy cream).

We switched it up based on what we had on hand: One gallon 2% milk, 3/4 C cider vinegar, 1 1/2 tsp course-grain kosher salt and 1/2 C half-and-half.

As far as the rest of the recipe, we followed Alton’s instructions. Here they are in a nutshell: Warm the milk over medium heat ’til it reaches 120 degrees F. Although Alton didn’t say it needed to be done, I gently stirred the milk on occasion. Remove the milk from the heat and gently pour in the vinegar. Continue to stir for 1-2 minutes. Almost immediately we saw the curd start to separate from the whey.

Cover the pot and allow it to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. This is an excellent opportunity to take a seat yourself and enjoy a beer.

Line a colander with a tea towel or some cheese cloth. Pour the mixture into that and allow it to drain for 5 minutes. Then, pull together the sides of the towel and place it under cold, running water for about 3-5 minutes. Make sure to squeeze it to break up the curds and move them around. Once cooled, drain out all the water you can and then transfer the curds to a large bowl. Mix in the salt.

Right before you’re ready to enjoy the cottage cheese, stir in the half-and-half or cream. We had only half of the final product that night. The rest (dry curds), we just covered and put in the refrigerator. Alton didn’t say how long it would keep, so we’ll let you decide what you’re comfortable with.

This was not like anything we’ve had from the grocery store. This is much cheesier and heavier. That might be because we used 2% milk, but we’re not sure. Next time we’ll try it with skim or 1% and see how that turns out.

(and labeling, and waiting …)

We bottled the 80 Shilling Scottish Ale today. Upon tasting the sample used to get the final gravity, we were quite impressed with the complexity of this beer — lots of different levels of malt in this one. Now we just have to wait for it to carbonate and mature for a few weeks.

The Crimpinator 1200, cooling its engines after yet another successful bottlecapping session.

Next on the bottling line: our Juniper Rye Lager, which will serve as Krameria Estates’ Holiday Beer for 2011. It’s been lagering in the auxiliary cooling unit here at the Estates since July 31; we’ll bring it out to come to room temperature for several days, and then bottle it.

Looks like this will be a "session beer," which is plenty alright.

Why, even this afternoon we made our first venture into the wild world of home yeast propagation, with our first yeast starter! Following the directions in the back of Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer’s Brewing Classic Styles, we made the starter pictured below using White Labs’ California Ale Yeast (WLP001) and some dry malt extract we had laying about the Estates. After giving the cells a chance to multiply by the tens of billions (hope we’ve got the counterspace), we’ll use the yeast to make a porter later this weekend.

Yeast starter, mere moments after pitching

And yes, that is a snazzy new 2000ml Erlenmeyer flask. We’re so excited!

I’m looking forward to it: it’s a nut brown ale with actual nuts in it (based on the Radical Brewing recipe, we added a cup of mashed walnuts to the mash). I bottled it with 1 1/4 cups of light DME, which I’d planned to use in bottling the Smoked Porter that we brewed on September 19 – but that had a gravity of 1.022 which is about 10 points higher than the recipe guidelines. I put it in the secondary instead (luckily, I had another batch of beer to bottle); if things go to plan, it’ll have a gravity of 1.022 in two or three weeks. I thought more time had passed since it was brewed — should have looked at my brewing journal.

Everything worked out though, and both beers tasted mighty good when I tested the gravity — the Smoked Porter does have a nice bit of smoke to it – and it’s pretty robust: just this side of a stout, I think.

I’m enjoying a Krameria Estates Oktoberfest while entering this post; it turned out quite lovely, I think. Been enjoying a lot of Oktoberfest from a lot of breweries as of late; it’s a mighty good beer this time of year. We went to Deutschland Tag at Helga’s last weekend — much Paulaner Oktoberfest was enjoyed (and we got to keep the .5L steins!), and Jasper behaved himself somewhat.

At a booth at Deustchland Tag, I found out about a German language class that meets every Monday evening very close to our neighborhood — that’ll have to wait until we get back from vacation.

This Krameria Oktoberfest is much more drinkable than it was a couple of weeks ago — I’m pretty happy with it.

I got an emailed press release from the Brewers Association this afternoon, and, in addition to the Dortmunder placing second among 21 entries in the Dortmunder or German-Style Oktoberfest category, Dry Dock has three more medals to add to its wall: their Bismarck Altbier won silver in the German-style Altbier category (37 entries); the U-Boat Hefeweizen won silver in the Southern Germany Hefeweizen category [65(!) entries]; and the Whale-Tail Wit won silver in the Belgian-style Witbier category (45 entries). Congratulations to Dry Dock; as I told the bartender yesterday, it would be tough to beat last year’s awards (Dry Dock was named Small Brewing Company of the Year), they’ve done themselves proud once again.

Other notes from the GABF:

• Another favorite brewery of mine, Great Divide Brewing Company, won a silver medal for its Collette, which was among 52 entries in the French- and Belgian-Style Saison category.
• Fade to Black, Left Hand Brewing Co.’s stout, won gold among 33 entries in the Foreign-Style Stout category.
• New Belgium won silver for its Eric’s Ale, which was among 39 entries in the American-Style Sour Ale category.
• Bristol Brewing Co. from Colorado Springs won two medals, including bronze for Laughing Lab (a favorite of mine, especially on draft) in the Scottish-Style Ale category (22 entries, which seems kind of low) and silver for Old #23 Barley Wine in the Barley Wine-Style Ale category (57 entries)
• Rock Bottom had quite a few medals, and, overall, Colorado breweries did very well at this year’s festival