Beer And Pickled Eggs

Posted on December 12, 2011 by admin

So I’m sure this pickled egg recipe is new to a lot of you do hopefully you’ll appreciate it. It’s an East Coast Pennsylvania recipe that goes pretty well with a good microbrew beer here at Dogtown.

What is a pickled egg?

A pickled egg is simply a hard boiled egg that sits in a pickled concoction that consists of beat juice, garlic, onions, and of course, beats. Its a real simple way to be able to chow down on hard boiled eggs and gives the eggs a much more robust flavor, especially when salt is added on top.

My grandmother had this simple recipe when I was younger and while I was working out heavily I would eat nothing but pickled eggs. I used to just eat the egg whites and throw away the yolks and she would yell at me, telling me I was wasting the egg. I was trying to explain to her the health benefits of NOT eating the yolk, but she has the old school mentality of wasting food and eating everything off of your plate.

In any case, here is how you make pickled eggs:

Buy a glass or plastic container that has a seal at the top or a lid that can screw on.

Buy the following:

5 Cans of beats (yes, cans.. Unless you feel like squeezing your own beat juice)
1 Onion
Chopped garlic
2-3 dozen eggs (I go with free range organic so these have some more health value added)

Boil the eggs, peal them, unless you are a fan of that thing called ‘Eggies’ which also seems to work. Add the beat juice to the container. Put a layer of beats down, and then put your eggs on them. Add chopped garlic and sliced onions, add more beats, and then add some water to fill the jar (only if you don’t have enough beat juice). Seal the jar and let it sit in the refrigerator for 7-10 days. The longer they sit, the more pickled they will be.

Building The Brewery: The Sabco Brew Magic System

Posted on November 22, 2011 by admin

A lot goes on when building your own business and there is a lot of pressure to keep things moving so the momentum continues.

I most recently purchased my own turn key brewing system from Sabco known as a Brew Magic. This system wasn’t cheap and I saved every penny I could to buy it. I also purchased over the last year the Chill Wizard, a Fermenter, and a Boiling Kettle which is the full process of brewing from start to finish.

Why did I choose Sabco? Simply because from all of my research they were the best. And to properly brew beer consistently, you need to have a turn key system that can handle that. I didn’t find that with the other vendors that were out there and since I’m planning on expanding my brewery, this Brew Magic system can then be a test pilot system for brewing small test batches before I have to brew in the large vessels.

The Brew Magic system arrived on a palette, weighing in at 500lbs. The problem I faced was that I wasn’t able to get the brew magic into my destination because the guy only delivered it on the sidewalk! Luckily I talked him into putting a little more work in and the both of us pushed that sucker on a palette loader up an incline, closer to my place.

I finally unboxed it and the next step was to get it from Point B to Point C, so I couldn’t do it by myself, so I gave a local Mexican worker $20 to help me life it up. Everything seemed to work out!

It took me about a week of trying to assemble all of the right components together and the next step is to run a water test through the system to check for any leaks or issues with the computer. And hopefully in the next week or two, I’ll have a full turn key microbrew system that can start cranking out my beer for the next phase of Building the Brewery.

Happy Holidays!

2011 Top Microbreweries in the United States

Posted on November 15, 2011 by admin

Dating back to the early Neolithic period, beer has been tagged as one of the world’s oldest prepared beverages. Probably created in 9500 BC, its early existence has been recorded on historical writings in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The process of making the said alcoholic beverage is called brewing. In the United States, beer is manufactured in 1,700 breweries producing 196 million barrels in 2009. Americans have long been hooked to this “sweet nectar for the gods.” According to the World Health Organization, the United States ranked second in terms of beer consumption consuming 20 US gallons or 76 liters of beer per capita annually.

Of the thousands of breweries in the United States that produce one of the most widely consumed beverages, there are a few that made the cut for the top microbreweries in the country. These breweries have mastered the science of making quality beers through the years and have been quenching the Americans’ intense thirst for beer.

Relatively new in the brewing industry, Dry Dock Brewing Company first made waves in 2006 when it won gold in the World Beer Cup for its H.M.S. Victory E.S.B beer after a year in operation. The company was first conceived after its owner and founder, Kevin DeLange, decided to take his own homebrewing recipes to the people of Aurora, Colorado. Since then, the “Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year” has reaped numerous accolades and has expanded from producing a meager 300 barrels of beer back in 2005 to almost quadrupled in 2011.

Ballas Point Brewing Company began with a home brewer’s humble dream. Founded in 1996 by Jack White in San Diego, California, he was later joined by Yuseff Cherney. Almost a decade and a half in the industry, Ballas Point prides itself with three gold medals as well as the “Small Brewery Champion” award for the World Beer Cup. One of its famous beer is the Sculpin IPA which won them one of the gold medals in the said competition.

Being home to Men’s Journal’s “Best Beer in America,” Firestone Walker Brewing Company was formed by Adam Firestone and David Walker in 1996 in Paso Robles, Central California. There countless and long list of awards prove their commitment in making exceptional pale ales which include Firestone Pale Ales, Indian Pale Ales, and Nectar Ales.

Also consistent in the top microbreweries list both from experts and enthusiasts is the Port Brewing Company formally founded in 2006. Located in San Diego County California, they currently have four year round beers, eight seasonal beers and two barrel-aged specialties including the multi-awarded Hop-15 and Los Angeles Times’ “Beer of the Month” Old Viscosity.

For Associated Press Middle East Correspondent Steve Hindy and banker Tom Potter, quitting their respective jobs in 1987 proved to be the right decision as the brewing company, Brooklyn Brewery they both founded, is recognized as one of the country’s top brewery and among the top draft beers in New York City. They also ship beers to Denmark, Finland and Sweden and also do exports in Hong Kong, Japan and Great Britain.

Its existence for over a century speaks well of the quality of beer the company is brewing. Brewing beer since 1853, F.X. Matt Brewing Company is considered to be the second oldest family-owned brewery in the United States. They have been among the top 15 largest overall brewing company in the country based on 2008 sales volume. The most famous product of the company is the Saranac line of beers. The company also produces soft drinks such as Ginger and Root Beer. Founded by German- born immigrant F.X. Matt I, the family tradition is continued by Nick Matt and his nephew, Fred Matt.

A wonderful combination of new and old brewing techniques, the Boulevard Brewery is a craft brewery located in Kansas City, Missouri. It is the 17^th largest brewery in the in the United States being home to award-winning Unfiltered Wheat Beer, the most popular offering of the company. John McDonald founded the company in 1988 in Kansas City’s Southwest Boulevard.

Being voted as the No.1 Best Brewery All Time by Beer Advocate readers and constantly ranked as one of the best brewers in the United States, Stone Brewing Company is known for its aggressive Arrogant Bastard Ale with flagship beers Stone Pale Ale and Stone IPA. The company is the brainchild of Steve Wagner and Greg Koch, both self-confessed beer lovers in 1996.

Four Peaks Brewery was opened in 1996 in an old creamery and warehouse in Tempe, Arizona with another Tempe site on conception in response to high demands. The beers of the brewery continue to gain notoriety and distinction including those from Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado. Kilt Lifter is Four Peaks’ flagship ale. Approximately, it has 6.0% alcohol by volume.

Living up to its name, Victory Brewing Company is brewing victory with each beer since 1996. Founded by longtime friends, Ron Barchet and Bill Covaleski, Victory’s brands includes HopDevil, Prima Pils, Headwaters Pale Ale, Golden Monkey, and Storm King which is distributed to 30 states in the United States. Their Golden Monkey beer was awarded the Golden Icon Awards as Best Specialty Beer. In 2010, they have produced almost 60,000 barrels of beer. From a 142-seater restaurant, they have added 200 seats to accommodate local craft beer drinkers.

These breweries have exemplified a great deal of passion, commitment and skill that have translated into multi-awarded and highly patronized beers. As the industry continues to grow and the process of brewing become more and more modern, these breweries prove that the best thing they could give the beer-frenzied Americans is a beer that is worth the cost – more than profit, more than money.

It’s a Doggy Dog World

Posted on October 29, 2011 by admin

Setting up your own brewery isn’t the easiest thing to do, that’s for sure. Beer takes time to perfect and time to create. Between choosing the right main components, and then trying to spice up the recipe with some beer additions and flavor enhancers, there is plenty to do when selecting a good quality beer, especially when you have your beer fans that you have to cater to. Word travels fast when your beer is crap, no matter how good you think it is.

With the huge push to India Pale Ale (IPA), Dogtown Brewing is really focusing on a kick ass beer that will have Dogtown lovers rejoicing for a high quality beer with a kick to it. The marketing plan will also be a key ingredient because every top microbrew in the US has an IPA, and having a plan to go along with your IPA beer is pretty darn crucial.

So where is Dogtown Brewing now? Well, we are still perfecting. Our Wit beer is in its final stages of approval, with our IPA next on the saddle, followed by a crisp brown ale that will be a seasonal fall hit next year at your local bar or brewpub.

Dogtown is also looking into growing its own hops, so we can provide a little more control with the quality of the hops that we brew with. We won’t have 100% home made hops, we will most likely use the fresh hops as a flavor enhancer for the IPA.

Stay tuned for some videos of our equipment, an interview of some people that already were able to get a first hand taste of Dogtown Brewing’s Beer, and some upcoming events that beer enthusiasts might enjoy.

What exactly is an IPA Brew

Posted on October 24, 2011 by admin

Nasty Beer. If you have never been regrettable sufficient to have had this type of beer, count yourself lucky. If you have, then you know what the British had been dealing with in the early 1700′s attempting to get beer south close to the west of Africa, throughout the equator, all around the Cape of Great Hope, and then again north throughout the Indian Ocean to the British troopers and citizens there demanding beer in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. Extreme temperature alterations, and prolonged, scorching storage problems lead to beer to go bad- actual negative. So, in the encounter of such pre-refrigeration situations, the British brewers set to work with what instruments they had- namely a lot more alcohol and more hops. Alcohol is obvious, but hops are really astringent and are extra as an antibiotic and stabilizing agent.

George Hodgson from the Bow Brewery in East London eventually came to a answer by taking his Pale Ale recipe and considerably increasing the hop and alcohol material. The consequence was a bitter, quite alcoholic Ale that survived the trip to India and was in fact drinkable at the stop of the trip. Hodgson grew to become a legend.

At about the same time, related situations afflicted the trade of Beer to Russia, and a comparable resolution was discovered, only this IPA stood for “Imperial Pale Ale”. Before long ample, political problems ceased trade with Russia, and most “Imperial” brewers simply switched markets to India, creating the “IPA” acronym synonymous for either brew.

Eventually, breweries opened up in Asia, and in the end refrigeration and modern day storage removed the need for the further kick and hops, but the brew nevertheless has a adhering to, because some individuals basically like the taste! Even in its heyday IPA’s seldom went previously mentioned eight% ABV, and today’s common IPA’s are a lot less than that, usually among 5-7% ABV.

Who Doesn’t Love Beer?

Posted on October 22, 2011 by admin

Here’s a sample photo of one of our beers coming out. The beer name is a secret, however I will say that this beer is going to be a nice winter brown ale, something with a little nutty flavor to it with a rock and roll appeal. Enjoy the photo.

Dogtown

A nice winter amber ale from Dogtown

How To Make Great Beer: The Starter Equipment

Posted on October 13, 2011 by admin

Before I begin, I’m just going to put the disclaimer out there that I’m not a brewing genius, and there probably is going to be some finer details that I’m missing; so if you’re a homebrew master or a professional brewmaster, feel free to chime in on the comments to add tips to our fellow brew guys.

Here are some key points and some recommendations to some resources that I used when I first started brewing beer. Feel free to bookmark this blog writeup to reference it.

The most important resources: Equipment.. Beer making equipment is pretty accessible in the Los Angeles area, so I have no trouble with tapping into a local homebrew supply store for some last minute yeast, hop bags, or tubing. My spot is: Southbay Brewing Supply. Small store, great guys that run it, and very knowledgeable.

But when it comes to starter kits, you need to get yourself a MoreBeer kit to begin. I’ve purchased a lot of stuff from them and my very first kit was this kit.

Here is the basic breakdown of what it has:

Bottle of Star San Sanitizer (4oz)
Plastic Bottle Filler
Bag of Bottle Caps (1/4lb)
Bottle Capper
Reusable Mesh Steeping Bag
Reusable Mesh Hop Bag
Plastic Spoon
Funnel
Home Beermaking Book
Bottle Brush
Plastic Carboy
Package of Powdered Brewery Wash (PBW)
Plastic Bottling/Sanitation Bucket with Spigot
Airlock
Rubber Stopper with Hole
Hydrometer
Hydrometer Jar
5ft Vinyl Transfer Tubing
Sterile Siphon Starter (Contains Racking Cane with Tubing, Air Filter and Carboy Hood)
5 inch long dial thermometer
Light Ale Ingredient Kit with Brewing Instructions
Dry Brewers Ale Yeast
2 Cases of (12) 22oz Bottles
8-Gallon Heavy Duty Kettle with Ball Valve, Barb and Notched Lid
Copper Wort Chiller with Tubing

MoreBeer does a great job at explaining step by step how to brew, without screwing up. Its a great resource and they have great tutorials on the website so enjoy!

I recommend doing a full system if you can fund the money. A little more money goes a long way and its much easier to enjoy your beer when done right. There’s nothing worse than brewing a batch, putting your blood, sweat, and tears into it, and then having it contaminated with bacteria because you didn’t follow directions or have equipment that was sterile. Clean brewing supplies is a very important component to brewing successful.

You also might want to get yourself the upgraded kit to keg your beer too. I eventually spent the money on it, because bottling is a pain in the ass, plus you have to wait an additional 10-14 days before you can drink your beer. So figure 5-8 hours of brew time, 10 days of fermenting in a carboy, and an additional 10-14 days bottled up using priming sugar. Not a very fun time sitting around waiting for it to happen. By Kegging, you can do something called force carbonating your beer, and have your brew ready to go in just a couple days after fermentation. Investing in a keg orator would be advisable otherwise your wife will kill you when you have to fit a 5 gallon Corny Keg in the refrigerator, which results in moving everything to a single shelf, sort of what I used to do here:

What I actually did was serve my beer with a Blichman Beer Gun that was attached to the corny keg and CO2 that was split. This allowed me to not only serve beer but if I wanted to quickly bottle some brew for friends, it was a quick way to throw some in a bottle by purging oxygen out of the bottle rapidly (I also purge oxygen out of a glass before releasing the beer so it doesn’t foam up).

My next article will continue some basics and education on brewing beer with providing some more resources for you to learn.

Thanks for reading!

Brewing Beer.. The Basic Elements

Posted on October 8, 2011 by admin

Note: I write this article for a new online magazine, original article is here: Home Brew Article Its a great new magazine that has some great stories to read.

I’m a single guy in his thirties living in Los Angeles. I’m at a Hollywood-hoopla party with guys who are too old to look like Justin Beiber, but they wear skinny jeans when they shouldn’t be wearing them. There I am, completely out of place, wearing a t-shirt, black jeans, and my Sanuks. I’m surrounded by beautiful women, all mixing and mingling around.

Everyone assumes that you are just like everyone else in Hollywood, so everyone talks about movies, actors, gossip, and, of course, themselves. Then out of the blue, someone from the circle asks ME what I do. I think they understand by my lack of improv ability that I might be someone with another job. So I tell the group, “I brew beer.” At that moment, I felt the music stop and all eyes directed at me. But not in a disrespectful way, but an overwhelming feeling of being enlightened because there’s some originality and curiosity with the art of brewing beer. Needless to say, I ended up getting two phone numbers that evening from a well-known actress and a producer. Go beer!

Brewing beer is very much an art as it is a science. It’s similar to the skills of cooking, by throwing ingredients in a boil at very specific times and at different temperatures to yield a certain taste. Brewing also follows a similar process to winemaking. However, with winemaking, wineries are fortunate enough to be able to blame the soil or climate if the wine is a little “off.”

For brewing, you have to be precise every time. A beer connoisseur doesn’t say “Oh, this was an off year for hops.” There is no second chance; it’s sink or swim.

I got myself into beer making from the curiosity of why certain beers had a great flavor and weren’t as popular as the big guns: Anheiser Busch, Miller, and Coors. I’ve never been a fan of any of these companies and just couldn’t understand why people thought drinking beer as thin as water was any good. A very simple technique: brainwashing. Our society is so fooled that these are great beers that they continue to support and buy these products, simply because of the amount of advertising spent.

I was one of the fortunate ones not to fall into the trap, probably because of my lack of television and attending sporting events. And so I started to explore the smaller companies with the “cool” names like Arrogant Basterd, Dogfish Head, Hair of the Dog, and Fat Tire. The list goes on and on. These companies started out with a passion of beer making and from that came the success.

I suggest watching the documentary called Beer Wars, about corporate beer versus microbrews. Also, pick up a copy of the documentary called American Brew. It follows a group of guys traveling across the U.S. visiting microbreweries. After watching these two movies, I realized that I found my calling, but the first thing is first: I need to learn how to make beer!

So where would someone start to learn about making their own beer, you ask? In my opinion, the best place to purchase starter packages is a place called MoreBeer.com. They have a large variety, and they have great customer service if you have any questions. To learn more about tips and tricks, I recommend going on theHomeBrewTalk.com forum to chat it up with the homebrew pros.

For those of you who know nothing about beer and are just curious how it works, I’ll spare the super-technical details and break it down for you very easily: beer is composed of broken-down sugars from various grains, known as sweet wort, with a combination of boiling various other elements, including a flower cluster from the cannabis family known as humulus, or “hops,” which balances the sugars from the grains with its strong bitterness. Once this combination (among other things) is completed, the hot combination is quickly reduced to a cooler temperature and yeast is added into a fermenter. A fermenter is where the yeast eats the sugar and omits CO2, releasing oxygen and creating alcohol. This is the longest process and takes anywhere from two weeks to six months, depending on the type of beer and the temperature your beer sits and ferments. So unfortunately, there is no immediate pleasure from the first step of brewing a fresh batch of beer. It’s best to crack a cold one open while this process occurs.

Once the beer is fermented, it gets carefully transferred into kegs or bottles, which then gets carbonation. This can be done either from adding corn sugar, which takes about two more weeks to drink, or the method most of us prefer, which is a process called “forced carbonation,” where we fill a keg up with flat beer, hook up CO2, and force the CO2 into the beer for immediate flavor.

As for me, I’ve decided to take my process one step further. I’m venturing into the world of entrepreneurship with my vision to open up my own brewery. What I’m planning on doing is contacting a reality-show-based website that will document my entire process with hopes to succeed to the level of a full blown brewery / brewpub, known as Dogtowns. By contributing to daily blogs, video entries, and behind the scenes footage on my website Dogtowns.com, I hope to inspire people to follow their dreams and to never give up. So stay tuned, you might see history in the making.

What is ‘Dogtown’

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

A lot of people ask me what the meaning of Dogtown Brewing really means and where I came up with the name for my beer company. I’ll give a little explanation of Dogtown and some insight as to the direction I’m going with the business.

I’ve kept the name under close wraps for the past year because I was slowly developing my business plan and my marketing concepts to ensure that nobody else has any Dogtown Beer conflicts with a full brewery. So once I’ve discovered that I have the ability to start this company, I incorporated Dogtown to be my full fledged corporation and bought a handful of domains to use as a target website.

Dogtown Wiki

This was some information pulled from the Venice, CA / Santa Monica, CA wikipedia about what the true definition of Dogtown is:

The district around POP in the southside of Santa Monica is known as Dogtown. It is a common misconception that Dogtown is in Venice, but the original Z-boys surfing and skateboarding shop was and is still on Main St. in Santa Monica. Venice and Santa Monica were home to pioneering skateboarders the Z-Boys, as profiled in the documentary film, Dogtown and Z-Boys. Little known is that POP pier was actually completely in Santa Monica, it started at the end of Ocean Park Blvd and extended to the line where Venice meets Santa Monica.

Binoculars Building (originally Chiat/Day Building), 340 Main Street. Frank Gehry, Architect. The binoculars, which house a conference room, were designed with help from Claes Oldenburgand Coosje van Bruggen

Producer Roger Corman owned a production facility, the Concorde/New Horizons Studio, on Main Street, where many of his films were shot. This facility was razed to build the Venice Art Lofts and Dogtown Station lofts.

Why Dogtown?

Why did I choose Dogtown Brewing as my beer business? I’ve always been a fan of the Dogtown Era, and own Dogtown and Z Boyz and Lords of Dogtown. That rebellious era of skate and surf was always something that fascinated me, because coming from Pennsylvania there wasn’t that period in my life where I could be a long haired skater or surfer.

I currently live in Manhattan Beach which is right next to Venice, CA and Santa Monica, CA; and I’m going to be brewing in the old Dogtown region which is off of Main St. in Santa Monica. I want to keep the company authentic and I want Dogtown Brewing to live up to its potential with the quality and the actual brand that people from that era can feel proud of.