Houston and the Hay Merchant Part 2

I've had a busy couple of weeks, but I'm finally back to post part 2 of my Houston trip and my beer drinking adventure at The Hay Merchant.  Continuing from my last post, I'm going to review a few beers and mix in a couple of vacation action shots.



Live Oak Pilsener (Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX)

Live Oak's Pilsner offering was a very solid and classic example of a Czech Pilsener.  As you can see from the picture, it has a hazy golden color with a nice foamy white head.  The aroma was crisp and slightly floral with the taste being crisp and clean with slight hop bitterness but an easy floral finish.  It had good carbonation with a nice mouthfeel.  Overall, I really enjoyed this offering from Live Oak.  Along with their Schwarzbier, Live Oak impressed me big time as a brewery.  I highly recommend this pilsener. 
Score:  4.2 / 5

After a night of heavy drinking I was fortunate enough to enjoy Torchy's Tacos for the first time.  My buddy raved about the tacos and their ability to cure hangovers.  I was not disappointed. Pictured is the Jerk Chicken Taco with mango and a spicy habañero sauce...How could you go wrong?



Karbach Weisse Versa Hefeweizen (Karbach Brewing Co. Houston, TX)

Karbach was a brewery that I was unfamiliar with before I tasted this Weisse Versa.  This was a great hefeweizen that complimented the hot sunny day outside.  The beer had a cloudy golden color and a thick white head that left a nice lace.  It had the smell of wheat and banana.  This beer had an interesting taste profile.  Up front was the traditional wheat flavor with a bit of banana, but it followed with a spice flavor like nutmeg that stayed through the finish.  Very interesting and very tasty.  It had a nice creamy mouthfeel that you expect from a full bodied hefe.  Overall I really enjoyed this offering as it was traditional and unique. 
Score:  4.5 / 5

Overall, Houston was a great time, and one of the places that made it so fun was The Hay Merchant.  If you love beer then you will have a great time at this bar.

Houston: The Hay Merchant

I took a quick weekend trip to Houston to catch an Astros game and a concert, and while I was there, I discovered one of the best craft bars I've been to in a long time.  The Hay Merchant is a craft brew bar on Westheimer Road in Houston.  It wasn't much to look at from the outside, but as soon as I stepped inside, I found myself in beer heaven complete with nearly 50 well-thought-out taps (most of which you cannot find in Louisiana). For research sake, I did my best as tasting nearly every single delicious draft.  Below there is a short review (complete with shameless baseball puns) of each beer I tried while visiting this heavenly hoppy bar.

I'll lead off with the beer I thought was a home run...

Bavik Petrus Aged Pale (Brouwerij Bavik, Belgium)

This was a perfect example of a sour Oud Bruin:  Color of straw and had a nice white belgian head.  The aroma was funky, but in the way you expect from a good Belgian sour.  One taste of this and I was blown away.  It had a nice tart sourness, but not overpowering, which allowed the strong flavors of fruit and malt to come through nicely.  The mouthfeel was good and it drank very smootly.  This was a very complex and well crafted beer.  

Score: 4.8 / 5

Live Oak Schwarzbier (Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX)

This was a very tasty Schwarzbier.  Schwarzbier is German for "black beer," and they are usually lighter in taste than their dark beer companions, Porter and Stout.  Live Oak's Schwarzbier had good dark brown color to it with a strong foamy cream head.  You get the flavors of roasted malt, bread and biscuit.  You also get some strong hop bitters.  The mouthfeel was crisp and clean; a very easy-to-drink dark beer.  I
Score: 4.0 / 5

Our initial seats at the game:

Our new and improved seats at the game:



The game was fun, but it was too bad the Astros lost. (I think they will lose a lot this year...)



Left Hand Polestar Pilsner (Left Hand Brewing, Longmont, CO)

This was probably my least favorite.  It had a great golden yellow color with a nice thick white Pilsner style head, but when I tasted it, I thought it was too aggressively hopped for a Pilsner style beer.  This may have been more of me expecting one thing and tasting something else though...both of my friends enjoyed this beer.  It had good light malty notes and drank crisply and smoothly, but the hop choice turned me off from this beer.
Score:  2.5 / 5

Good Friday with Saint Arnold

I spent good Friday at a crawfish boil with my family, and I wanted to take the opportunity to show off what I've been drinking recently.

 

Saint Arnold Fancy Lawnmower is a Kolsch style beer with a straw yellow color and a decent, but short-lived white head.  Malty aroma with a hint of fruit and slight hop tones -- very clean and bready on the sweet side; the perfect compliment to spicy crawfish. With a nice crisp finish, I'd give it a 3.6/5.

Lob Shot Lager

After brewing a lot of ales over the past few years I finally decided to try my hand at brewing a lager.  Lager beers need to be fermented at colder temperatures than ales, as lagers require a very clean and crisp taste profile as opposed to the fruity ester profile of an ale.  These colder temperatures reduce the yeast's metabolism which leads to longer fermentation times.  In order to achieve the colder temperatures needed for good lager fermentation (for this German Lager Yeast I need 50-55F) it was necessary to buy a chest freezer and use a digital temperature controller to keep the fermentation temperature constant around 53F.  In addition to fermenting at lower temperatures lagers need to be...Lagered...

The word lager comes from the German word "lagern" which means to store.  After primary fermentation is complete lagers are stored for weeks or even months in cold temperatures around 32-38F.  During this extended lagering time the yeast is cleaning up other compounds in the beer than can give rise to off flavors that would ruin a nice crisp lager.  This lagering period also helps to clear the beer of all the proteins and particles that end up floating around during fermentation. 

Kegging the Bourbon Bacon Ale

You can see the recipe for this brew here.

The Bourbon Bacon Ale after 1 month in the carboy

Playing with my new kegging gadgets. 5 lb CO2 tank, nice regulator and 5 gallon cornelius keg

Siphoning the ale into the keg

Bourbon Bacon Beer

BAY OF PIGS:  Hogs for the Cause Team

Sunday, January 20th

Brew-BQ to batch the Bourbon Bacon Beer

Cleaning the equipment

A little pre brew relaxation

Boiling the water...Going for strike temp of 165 degrees to get a Mash temp of 158 degrees.  I hit it right on the nose.