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June 29, 2007 - Yet another Summertime Session favorite is on tap here at the Ale House. It's our Wit Beer; this tasty ale is just the right cure for those hot and steamy days here in Milwaukee . Pale, wheat and caramel malts are lusciously tied together with oats and rye. Balanced with perle and cascade hops in the kettle, I've also spiced this classic Belgian-style wheat beer with the traditional orange peel and coriander as well as grains of paradise and premium black pepper for extra zest. Come and get your Wit on. Cheers, June 6, 2007 - Our ever-popular Summer Session Beer "Orange Blossom Cream Ale" is back! This refreshing cream ale is brewed with pale, wheat, and caramel malts. Ninety six pounds of orange blossom honey was added to the brew kettle at the end of boil, contributing a light essence of orange flavor and aroma. Bitterness checks in at delicate 11 BU's using all Cascade hops. Cascades are the classic American hop that's noted for its citrus flavor and complements the use of orange blossom honey nicely. This beer is served up on a nitrogen tap and will exhibit a creamy white head. Silky smooth, light bodied, and refreshing, this one is off the charts on the drinkability scale. Stop in soon and slide one down, this Session beer is soon to be a pleasant memory. Cheers, March 8, 2006 - Here's a first; we have TWO new Session Beers to premiere this Thursday, March 9. Just in time to gear up for our famous Saint Patrick's Day celebration here at the Ale House. I've brewed these Session Beers with the Emerald Isle in mind. The first is the return of our famous Celtic Red ale. This classic Irish-style red ale is medium bodied, smooth and malty with a light caramel malt bite. Medium-low hop bitterness lets the malt take the lead in this true Session-style beer that is only about 4.5% alcohol by volume. The second Session Beer is a new one for your St. Pat's day enjoyment called Black Irish Stout. This beer is rich, robust and full-bodied with a big roasted malt finish. I'd call it an extra-stout stout and I think you'll find it as satisfying as finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Well, maybe that's an unfair comparison, but if you like dark beers, this one is for you. Cheers, Febuary 19, 2006 - Get ready for a completely new, yet totally traditional Session Beer. It's an English-style India Pale Ale called Boudicca Bitter. It's a simple recipe brewed from 100% pale ale malt, and 100% English East Kent Golding hops. The beer is quite big at 6.7% alcohol by volume and well hopped to 65 BU's, yet it is very easy drinking. Light to medium bronze in color with a slight haze from the large amount of hops used in dry-hopping, this beer has a very pleasant fruity flavor and aroma. Not all bitterness is created equal and this is a great beer to showcase that point. The bitterness and hop flavor from the Kent Golding hops is very, very smooth and the aroma wafts up from the pint in mild waves reminiscent of herbs. This Session Beer was named after Queen Boudicca who reigned over her Celtic tribe in resistance to the Roman Empire during the time of Nero. She had suffered one insult too many and took a stand against the Roman legions and lead her people in a military campaign that burned the early London to the ground and nearly drove the Empire from the island. In her honor, I named this easy drinking IPA after the Queen, but like the Queen herself, don't push her too far, just enjoy in moderation. Cheers, November 29, 2005 - Happy Holidays everyone! Thanks again for all your loyal patronage throughout 2005, it was a great year and I want to finish off December with an extra special brew I think will please most every beer lover out there. Our latest Session Beer is a German-style Dunkel Weiss I'm calling Winter Weiss. I've brewed many a weiss beer at the Ale House, but never a dark weiss before; it's a first for me. This beer will pour hazy brown in the pint and have those special phenolic aromas and flavors found in a standard weiss beer, but the accent will be on the malt. I've also upped the percentage of wheat malt used in my regular weiss to nearly 60% and used a dark two-row Munich malt in place of two-row brewers malt with just a bit of extra special malt and chocolate malt to round out the flavor and anchor the color. Very lightly hopped with tettnang and Styrian goldings to keep the malt flavor lively. This beer is just a bit bigger than your ordinary weiss beer, with alcohol at just over 5.75% by volume, but is no monster by any means. Stop by and drink up some Holiday Cheer. A pint a day keeps the Grinch away. Yours truly, November 8, 2005 - We've secretly tapped our latest Session Beer we're calling Ale House Lager. It's so good we couldn't keep the secret to ourselves. This special batch of lager was brewed with Pilsen, Munich, and Carapils malts and is perfectly balanced with Perle, Tettnang, and Halertau Mittlefruh hops. Soft malt aromas and flavors are seamlessly integrated with just enough hops to bring it to a smooth finish. Speaking of finish, stop down soon because I think this batch will be finished sooner than later. Prosit! Jim Olen October 17, 2005 - You've asked for it, and now it's on tap right here at the Ale House. The newest Session Beer is called Regatta Nut Brown Ale. I've received many a request for another dark ale and decided to brew it for our annual Louie's Last Regatta fundraiser for Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. My trusty assistant Robert Morton has again spearheaded this effort in hopes of topping last years record donation of over $60,000 dollars for the kids at Children's. On top of any money raised we'll also kick in 20% of all sales from the Regatta Nut Brown Ale to the grand total. But what about the beer? Well, I have to say it's my latest favorite. My first impression was the beautiful dark brown hue and the aroma of fresh, lightly toasted bread. Roasted malt flavors are balanced by malt sweetness and do not overwhelm the overall balance of this beer. This is an English-style brown ale and this is evident in the great hop flavors contributed by East Kent Golding and Styrian Golding hops. There's just enough hop bitterness to back up the solid malt flavors. It's is an easy drinking ale with many layers of flavor, especially as the pint warms up. Yet at 4.3% alcohol, it's approaches being a true session beer. You can enjoy several pints without falling off your barstool. Please come down, have a pint and feel extra good knowing it's going to a great cause. Jim Olen September 13, 2005 - Back by popular demand, we're proud to offer a special edition of our Session Beer called Old Tankard Ale, or "OTA" for short. We will have it on tap it to the public on Wednesday, September 14. The recipe for this beer is from one of Milwaukee's largest shuttered breweries. We stayed true to the original recipe and faithfully recreated this unique ale. It's brewed with two and six row base malts including a good portion of corn adjunct. Fermented with our house ale yeast and dry hopped with the very fine aroma hop Hallertau Mittlefru. This straw colored ale will have a fresh hop aroma with a quick bitterness and will finish on the dry side. This unique brew combines the New World tradition of incorporating adjuncts with the English technique of dry hopping. You could consider this beer an original American style pale ale. For those of you keeping score at home, we first brewed this beer last year. The only difference is that last years version was dry hopped with Styrian Goldings; the original recipe allowed for either hop. It was so popular that the Illinois Brewer's Guild requested the use of the recipe for their Replicale brew. Participating members tried their hand at recreating this ale and served up their version for the happy masses to our neighbors down south. Stop on down for a pint and enjoy a bit of American brewing history in liquid form. Jim Olen August 24, 2005 - Summer may be winding down, but not our here at the Ale House. Back on tap for a late Summer appearance is our latest Session Beer "Ale House Weiss." This classic German-style weiss beer is made with almost 50% malted wheat and nicely hopped with Styrian Goldings. Fermented with a true German weiss yeast strain producing light phenolic notes of banana in both aroma and flavor. Unfiltered and fresh to your pint you can enjoy this refreshing beer with its distinct cloudy appearance with or without a slice of lemon. This may be the one and only batch of Ale House Weiss for this Summer so don't miss out. Prosit! Jim Olen August 1, 2005 - Greetings my fellow friends in foam! A belated update on our latest Session Beer tapped two weeks ago and going fast. It is the return of the Orange Blossom Cream Ale, yet another original creation of mine, back by popular demand. This light colored ale is brewed with about 80% pale two row brewers malt with corn as the balance. Bittered with Styrian Goldings to 13 BU for a light and bright hop flavor. Finally, ninety six pounds of orange blossom honey is added to the brew kettle at the end of boil. The subtle flavor and aroma of the orange blossom derived honey comes through as if it were an infusion, but never too intense or heavy. This straw colored beer is served on a nitro-style tap for a big creamy head and a smooth finish. Thirsty for a frosty one? I am! See you down here soon. Jim Olen April 13, 2005 - Attention all Belgin-style beer lovers and everyone else who appreciates great craft brewed beer - have we got a treat for you! It's our next Session Beer called Devil's Advocate. This big brown beer is a spiced Belgian-style Double ale. Brewed from a base of specialty malts including wheat malt, raw white wheat, aromatic and caramel malts, and oats and hopped to 22 BU's with Styrian Goldings and Czech Saaz. Sixty pounds of honey and 110 pounds of Belgian Candi sugar were added to the brew kettle to raise the original gravity of the beer while maintaining lightness of body. Near the end of boil, the wort was flavored with a blend of Wit-style spices; bitter and sweet orange peel, corriander, and grains of paradise. Fermented with a special yeast strain at elevated temperatures providing an additional layer of fruity flavors. Estery/phenolic aromas are joined by a sudden tartness in flavor, followed by an initial im pression of sweetness that soon dissolves into sublte spice and hop flavors and fininshing out in a subdued dryness. The only hint of it's higher alcohol content at 7% by volume is the nice warm feeling you'll get. Enjoy in moderation. Jim Olen March 2, 2005 - Celtic Red Ale, our newest Session Beer, is back to make its annual appearance for St. Patrick's Day. We'll actually have this one on tap a bit earlier this year, so you can enjoy a pint or two before the big party. This Irish-style red beer is brewed with generous portions of dark caramel malt, rye malt, and chocolate malt and is perfectly hopped with cascade and east Kent goldings to round out the smooth malt finish. This classic brew has 5.3% alcohol by volume and 23 IBU. Come on down and enjoy a beer with as much character as the Emerald Isle itself. "Here's to a long life and a merry one. Cheers, Brewers Jim and Rob January 17, 2005 - The newest Session Beer is now on tap! It is a big, bold, and hoppy India Pale Ale that we're calling The Bloody Third IPA. The name "The Bloody Third" is an historic nickname given to the the Third Ward back in the day when this area was populated by Irish immigrants. History tells us that it was a rather rough and tumble neighborhood and some of the population like to fight as much as they liked to drink. Fast forward from before the 1890's to the Historic Third Ward of today. The neighborhood is much more refined and so is the beer, but our hats are off to those early settlers. In honor of bygone days we brewed a very tasty IPA. This copper colored ale is loaded with tons of hop bitterness, flavor, and aroma. Brewed and dry hopped with 33 pounds of hops and built on a solid malt base for exceptional balance. The Bloody Third IPA is remarkable smooth and drinkable, but should be enjoyed with respect as the alcohol clocks in at over 6.8% by volume. Come on down to the Ale House and get yer hop on! All the Best for the New Year, Jim Olen
December 9, 2004 - Buckwheat Honey Porter, our latest Session Beer, will be on tap starting Wednesday, December 8. This hearty Winter brew is a robust porter brewed with a blend of base Munich malts, with caramel, chocolate, and rye malts rounding out the remainder of the grist bill. Full bodied but not heavy with lots of chocolate/roast malt flavors. Nicely balanced by 28 IBU's from tettnang, cascade, and East Kent golding hops. An additional dimension of flavor is obtained from 60 pounds of buckwheat honey added at the end of boil. Buckwheat honey is a very dark, almost black honey similar in flavor to molasses and dark malt extract. It's also very high in anti-oxidants, so just another reason why beer is good for you. This big tasting beer is not too heavy on the alcohol, at 5% by volume you can easily enjoy more than one (responsibly, of course). Cheers from the brewery and have a safe and happy Holiday Season. Jim Olen
November 22, 2004 - Next up Session Beer is (drum roll please)...the "233" Malt Licker. Hey, if the big boys make it, we can do it better and we did. Most industrial malt liquors are made with large percentages of adjuncts like corn, rice, and various syrups, with very little malted barley, and are "bittered" with hop extracts. We've refined the style and have brewed an all malt lager version of this heavy weight. This beer is very easy to drink and lightly hopped with tettnang and saaz. It has a smooth and slightly sweet finish and pairs well with almost any item on our menu. Just be careful though because this easy drinking Session Beer belies the fact that it contains 6.25% alcohol by volume. "233" me ASAP! Prosit! Jim Olen
September 27, 2004 - The Original Session Beer is back! Very near and dear to me, this is one of the six house beers I wrote recipes for and developed for the opening of the Milwaukee Ale House back in 1997. The other five, of course, are Louie's Demise Amber Ale, Downtown Lites Honey Ale, Solomon Juneau Golden Ale, Pull Chain Pail Ale, and Sheepshead Stout. The original Session Beer was a dark English mild ale. With lots of requests from you, our valued customers, for offering a seasonal, or specialty beer along with our standard house beers the difficult decision to drop Session ale was made. We did this to make room in our production schedule to be able to offer different kinds of beer all year 'round. The Session name remained, but as a seasonal beer. It's been almost five years since the last pint of the original Session was tapped. I've reviewed previous recipe notes and tweaked it a bit to come up with a dark mild ale under the Session banner we're naming Regatta Ale. This beer is named after our annual Louie's Last Regatta, a fund raiser for Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. In honor of this we are donating 25% of all sales from the Regatta Ale toward this worthy cause. Help the kids and enjoy a pint of Regatta Ale. Brewed with mild ale, caramel, chocolate, and special roasted malts for a nice medium roast malt flavor and bittered with traditional English East Kent Golding hops for exceptional balance. Served on a nitrogen-style tap for a creamy smooth treat. Alcohol 4.2%, 24 BU's. Please give my assistant brewer Robert Morton a slap on the back for all his hard work on helping to organize Louie's Sixth Last Regatta. Your truly, Jim Olen August 12, 2004 - The next Session Beer is yet another wheat beer, but this a brand new recipe we're calling "Bit O' Honey Wheat". Brewed with pale ale, Munich, caramel, and special roasted wheat malt lending a hazy tan colored hue to the pint. Hopped using Tettnang and Cascade hops, with sixty pounds of honey added at the end of boil. This beer starts with a light roast mildly sweet malt flavor and finishes with a crisp citrus hop flourish. Thirst quenching and highly drinkable, you'll find this ale to go with most any item on our dining menu. Here's the specs for the beer geeks, um, I mean aficionados; Original Gravity 11.8* Plato, Alcohol by volume 5%, 31 IBU. Cheers, Jim Olen May 20, 2004 - Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.......Come and get it! Our very popular Belgian-style Wit Beer will be tapped this Friday, July 16. This Session Beer is an easy drinking spiced wheat beer. We offer a batch of Belgian Wit every summer and, dare I say, I think it's best batch yet having tasted it yesterday right from the fermenter (gotta love a job where you get paid to drink). This wheat ale is similar in appearance to a traditional Weiss beer, i.e. pale yellow and cloudy, but the flavor of our Wit Beer comes with the spices we use. The last ten minutes of the boil we add orange peel, coriander, grains of paradise, and, new for this year, black pepper. At the end of boil 48 pounds of orange blossom are added to the kettle contributing a lightness of body and a subtle orange note. Fermented with our house ale yeast to allow the spices to be the major flavor contributor. The spice flavors are soft and refined and don't dominate or become cloying. Here's the details; for the grist I combined tow-row Pilsen malt with a combination of flaked wheat, malted wheat, raw wheat, and flaked oats for a very pale and mild flavored wort base. Bittered to 14 BU with just enough Styrian Golding and East Kent Golding hops to balance the mild wort sweetness. The alcohol is a bit bigger this year at 6.1% by volume, hey more bang for your buck. Hop on down and get your pint. Cheers, Practical Brewer Jim Olen
May 20, 2004 - The wait is over. Orange Blossom Cream Ale is now on tap! Light and refreshing with just a hint of orange flavor and aroma. This year's batch was brewed with a Pilsen malt base and corn for lightness of color and flavor. 96 pounds of delicious orange blossom honey was added to the brew kettle at end of boil, that's an increase of over 50% (we usually add 60 lbs.) Very low bittering with Perle hops. Finally, this elixir is served on a nitrogen tap for extreme smoothness. Alcohol is 5.4% by volume. This one will be consumed in no time, so RUN, don't walk, to the Ale House and get your TRUE pint. Jim Olen
May 6, 2004 - Just in time for the warm weather, we're rolling out our latest Session Beer, Ale House Weiss. This is an authentic German style Hefe-Weizen Bier brewed with almost 50% malted wheat and fermented with a genuine Weiss yeast strain. Pale and cloudy in our TRUE pint glasses, this beer is often served with a wedge of lemon for an extra refreshing taste treat. Here's some stats for you beer geeks; 13BU from two hoppings of Styrian Golding, Alcohol 5.1% by volume. FYI - Styrian Golding hops are grown in the former Yugoslavian republic of Slovenia, now an independent country. The original root stock is English Fuggle, and is similar to it's country of origin, but has it's own special characteristics due to the specific growing conditions in Slovenia. This hop is great for both bittering and aroma. I prefer to use American raw materials when ever possible, but some European hops just don't translate well when grown in the US. I feel this hop has a certain "brightness" (for lack of a better description) of flavor that complements Weiss beer quite well. I hope you agree. Prosit! Jim Olen March 18, 2004 - Kiss the Blarney Stone, Celtic Red Ale is back and bigger than ever. I've beefed up this years version of the Celtic classic and it's officially the best batch ever! (Of course, I say that every year). A unique blend of mild base malt, chocolate malt, dark roasted caramel malt and a large dose of rye malt gives this bold beer a dark ruby red color in our TRUE 16 ounce plus pint glass. Moderately hopped to 23 BU's with Tettnang and East Kent Golding for low hop bitterness thus allowing the delicious malt flavors to shine through. Expect a pronounced malt flavor with spicy rye overtones followed by a roasted malt finish. Alcohol 5.5% by volume. May the pint rise up to meet ya'. Jim Olen March 2, 2004 - Retro beers seem to be the in thing lately. What's old is new again, so in that spirit I have gotten my hands on the original recipe for Old Tankard Ale. This classic was brewed by Pabst, one of Milwaukee's former brewing behemoths, and has been out of production for several decades now. I was surprised to learn that this was a genuine ale, not just some pretender lager fermented at warmer temperatures to produce an "ale like" flavor. Although the recipe calls for corn and corn sugar, a traditional American ingredient in most industrial brews, it also used a real English yeast strain and to my surprise, was fermented in open fermentation vessels, a very traditional English method. After primary fermentation, the beer was dry hopped, yet another Old World method of increasing hop aroma by adding fresh hops directly to the beer. I have faithfully recreated this beer and I'm please to report that the results are outstanding. It is pale gold in color with a solid hop bitterness, but not overly so. Hopped to a level of 26 Bitterness Units (BU) with American Cluster and dry hopped with imported Styrian Golding, the hop aroma blossoms like a flower in the pint. The beer finishes on the dry side, with an overall delicious hop flavor on the palate. Alcohol comes in at 5.5% by volume. This blast from the past will be premiered at our Tapppa Kegga Day Society on Wednesday, March 3 and on tap the following day. Mugs up to Old Tankard Ale and join us for a taste of brewing history. Jim Olen January 16, 2004 - It's hard to believe, but almost a year has past since we first introduced our Honey Porter in our line of seasonal Session Beers. Well, it's back by popular demand and deservedly so. This assertive black porter is based on a sub-style of Porters know as Swedish, or Baltic Porters traditionally from Northern and Eastern Europe. Formulated with a variety of malts with the accent on malty pale ale and Munich base malts. Dark roast flavor and color are developed from a palate of caramel, dark amber, chocolate, and roasted barley malts. Malt flavors are exquisitely balanced to the tune of 27 Bitterness Units using Tettnang, Cascade, and East Kent Golding hops. Finally, the brew has an extra kick with 60 pounds of Wisconsin honey added at the end of boil. This beer will appear almost, but not quite, black in our TRUE PINT glass (no 12 or 14 oz. cheater "pints" at the Ale House) with a beautiful tan head inviting you in for your first taste...you'll be hooked by the wonderfully full bodied, but not heavy, roast malt flavors kept in check by a big malt base and brought home by the carefully selected blend of hops. It's one of my favorites, I hope you'll agree. Practical Brewer, Jim Olen PS - Just wanted to share the good news. The Milwaukee Ale House received three awards from The World Beer Championships conducted by the Beverage Tasting Institute for our beer and root beer last year. I've just neglected, OK let's say forgot, to mention this in previous postings. Our Louie's Demise Ale won a Bronze Medal (they must have meant a Platinum and got confused by the color of the beer) in the Amber Ale category. Our Pull Chain Pail Ale won a Silver Medal in the Pale Ale category. Finally, our Ale House Root beer garnered a Gold Medal besting other excellent brands from Huber Brewing, Goose Island, Thomas Kemper, and Stevens Point, to name a few. All of this is nothing new to the supportive, should I say fanatic, customers and friends of the Milwaukee Ale House. Prosit! November 30, 2003 - Our Holiday offering from the brewhouse is the latest Session Beer called Honey Wheat Bock. This is a BIG beer with over 1200 pounds of malt in the grist and 60 pounds of real Wisconsin honey for an extra warming kick. But be careful as this hazy dark brown brew is stunningly drinkable. Brewed with a malty Munich malt base and over 40% wheat malt, this beer derives a special toasty flavor from a portion of lightly roasted wheat malt and just a smidgen of chocolate malt. We threw in a handful of Perle hops to balance the malt with 16 bittering units. Cool fermented and aged well over a month we will tap it for your drinking pleasure on Thursday, December 4th. We're pouring on the Holiday Cheer here at the Ale House so don't miss you chance to get your share. Sincerely, Jim Olen - Practical Brewer
October 13, 2003 - You know our middle name is Ale, but we're proud to present one of our rarely brewed lager beers. The newest Session Beer is an authentic Oktoberfestbier. Traditionally brewed in Munich, Germany, we've created a bit of Old World flavor on tap right here at the Milwaukee Ale House. This auburn colored lager beer was crafted from the finest of malts including Pilsen, Munich, and Vienna malts for the correct combination of strength and color. The brew was hopped with a combination of some of the best aromatic hops: Tettnang, Styrian Golding, and Czech Saaz. Brewed with a true lager yeast strain and cool fermented at 51*F, then aged or "lagered" for nearly two months before tapping. You'll find this lager full bodied, but not heavy, malty yet nicely balanced with pleasant hop flavor. Ale House Oktoberfest is a rare beer drinkers delight, enjoy some before the snow flies. 5.2% alcohol by volume, 25 IBU's. Your Practical Brewer, Jim Olen September 13, 2003 - Our latest Session Beer is for all you hop-heads out there. If you like our Pull Chain Pail Ale, you'll love our newest Session Beer "Xtra Ordinary Bitter (XOB)". Even if you're a malt advocate, I challenge you to taste a pint of this potent hop tonic. The recipe for this bronze colored ale is loosely based on our popular Pull Chain Pail Ale, but cranked up a few notches in both malt and hops. Lets begin with the malt; 1,150 pounds were used in the mash for an original gravity of over 15.2* Plato, with a final gravity of 4* Plato and producing an alcohol content of over 5.8% by volume. High temperature kilned specialty malts (Pale Ale, Victory, Munich 20*L, Special Roast) lend a nice toasty/malty accent and provide the backbone to support the hop bitterness and flavor. Now to the hops; I used the same hop in our Pull Chain, but in much larger quantities. Four additions of hops during the boil employed Cascade, the signature hop of the American craft beer movement, and East Kent Golding from the UK, the classic British pale ale hop. 24 pounds of hops total (1.6 LBS/BBL) were used to give the beer a whopping 60+ BU's on the bitterness scale. By comparison, a popular light beer out of St. Louis barely registers at about 8 BU's. Take that Bud Light! We premier XOB to our Tappa Kegga Day mug club on Wednesday, September 10, then officially on tap the following day. Stop on down and try a pint of the XOB, I DARE you. Your Practical Brewer, Jim Olen
August 23, 2003 - Hello, sorry for the belated brewing news update, but our website has undergone a bit of construction. Our newest Session Beer is, and soon to be was, another of our annual Summer offerings, Belgian Wit. This is a very flavorful, very drinkable spiced wheat beer. Brewed with almost 50% wheat (wheat malt, torrified wheat, wheat flakes, and raw red wheat) the beer is infused with orange peel, coriander, and grains of paradise* in the brew kettle during the last 15 minutes of the boil. For an added orange kick, we toss in 60 pounds of fresh orange blossom honey. Bittered with cirtrusy Amarillo hops to a level of 14 bitterness units. Lively carbonation brings out bright notes of orange/citrus in a very refreshing and thirst quenching pint. The beer retains its distinctive cloudy appearance due the the large amount of wheat used. Hurry in to try your pint, it's going quickly and won't be back until next summer. *Grains of paradise are an exotic spice similar in appearance and aroma to black peppercorns and are from the ginger family. They have a fine lavender-like aroma when milled. Cheers, Jim Olen - Practical Brewer P.S. - Beers on deck and in the hole are a very hoppy pale ale and
a genuine Oktoberfest
lager, yes a lager beer from the Ale House! So, my fellow friends of
foam, please
stay tuned to this brewpub. June 12, 2003 - On deck, and next up to bat on our Session Beer list is an Ale House summer favorite, Schatzi'sOrange Blossom Cream Ale. Named for our very own Mike Bieser's sweetheart of a wife Schatzi(aka Lynn). This superbly drinkable light golden ale has very nice nuances of orange blossom honey flavor and aroma. The grist consists of Pilsen Malt and Carapils with the remainder being white brewers corn flakes. This will produce a very light sweet wort (the preboiled liquid from the mash tun) allowing the orange blossom honey to come through in the finished beer. In the brew kettle, the wort is lightly hopped with two additions of
Perle for a total of 13 bitterness units. The style of hop and low bitterness
will also allow the honey flavor to be the star. Speaking about honey,
60 pounds of orange blossom honey are added at the end of boil. Note
that the honey is sanitized with the heat of the brew, but NOT boiled
so as to retain the It's official! 'Tis the season for Weiss beer, and not
just any old Weiss, but Ale House Weiss, the official beer of our outdoor
deck and all around warm weather refreshment. Our newest Sessions Beer
is a traditional German style wheat ale brewed from a grist containing
almost 50% wheat malt, the remainder being two row brewers malt. Lightly
bittered at 13 BU's with Styrian Goldings, one of my favorite (and hard
to get ahold of) hops from the country of Slovenia. Fermented with an
authentic weiss yeast strain to produce the familiar banana/clove/slightly
citrusy flavors and finishing at 5.5% alcohol by volume. This pale yellow,
cloudy Weiss Beer is everything you'd expect from the best German imports,
but fresher. Try it with a wedge of lemon for an extra zing, or enjoy
it straight up. Extremely drinkable and refreshing this is what you've
been waiting for. Look for it on tap Thursday, May 8, or if you're a
Tappa Kegga Day Society Mug Club Member you know we premier it
Attention, Attention!! beer lovers everywhere! A very important date in American beer history will be recognized with a new Session Beer we are calling Repeal Ale, in recognition of the repeal of Prohibition. Monday, April 7 will mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the national nightmare called Prohibition. We will, once again, premier our latest Session Beer to our Tappa Kega Day mug club members with a special SPeW on Monday the 7th (Wednesday is the usual SPeW day). Tuesday, April 8 we'll have it available to all our customers. If you can't wait, come Monday and join our ever expanding TKD Society.Now, a little information about the beer. Repeal Ale is brewed as a tribute to the beers that were rolling out of the big Milwaukee breweries on that happy day 70 years ago. This crisp, clear, golden ale was brewed with a very simple recipe; 80% two-row brewers malt and 20% white corn flakes. 26 Bitterness Units from three additions of Cluster hops. Wait a minute, corn in a craft beer? Yes, most breweries back then used some amount of adjunct and so did we. Cluster hops? Yes, again this was the main variety of hop most big brewers used back then, it's a classic! The beer was fermented at 60*F, that's cold by ale standards, to keep the flavor closer to a lager than an ale. Alcohol by volume is just over 5.7%. Hey, we wanted to have some fun, I said this recipe was inspired by the beers released just after Prohibition; if I brewed it to exactly what was available on 4/7/1933 we'd be drinking 3.2 beer. Come celebrate New Beers Eve and taste a bit of history with this Post-Prohibition inspired beer, Repeal Ale. Stand up for your right to enjoy good beer, and keep on drinking freely. Your Practical Brewer, Jim Olen Our Latest Session Ale, We're kicking off the big Saint Patrick's Day extended weekend with our latest Session Ale - CELTIC RED. It's a very well balanced Irish style red ale with a light roast flavor and a smooth hop finish. Here's the specs: Malts; Pale Ale Base Malt with the following specialty malts; Munich, Aromatic, Caramel, and Roasted Barley. Hops; 20 IBU from Czech Saaz and US Tettnang. Original Gravity 12.45*P, Final Gravity 2.7*P; 5.0 % Alcohol by volume. The craik is mighty! Jim OlenOur latest Session Beer, Honey Porter, will
be on tap Friday, January 31. This Porter recipe is based on
Swedish/Scandinavian/Eastern European/Baltic style porters. We're kicking
off the big Saint Patrick's Day extended weekend with our latest Session
Ale - CELTIC RED. It's a very well
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Old #7 Whiskey Bock is about to be tapped!
April 3, 2002: Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Fellow friends of the foam (drumroll please) - The Alehouse will be rolling out the barrel of Old No. 7 Whiskey Bock on Wednesday, April 3 for Mug Club members only, and will be available for general imbibement after the premier on the following day. The Alehouse doesn't get a chance to brew lagers very often (we are the ALEhouse after all), especially Bocks. This is only the second batch of bock in our nearly
five year history, so a rare treat indeed. We brewed this bock with
a large portion of Munich and Caramel malts for a big malt flavor and
aroma. Flavor and alcohol was further magnafied by the I don't expect it to taste like a boilermaker, but I do expect the fine flavors and aromas found locked into the charred whiskey tinged oak to be nicely comingled and incorporated into the beer. Expect Old No. 7 to be medium bodied with little to no detectable hop bitterness or flavor. The barrel aged portion will contribute flavor notes of vanilla, oak, spiced rum cake, dark fruits; overall very well balanced. This amber colored bock clocks in at 6% alcohol by volume so please enjoy with respect. Cheers to you! Jim Olen
February 26, 2002: Hello Ale House friends, guests, and customers. The Bock beer is in the fermentor and is about two weeks old with about another five weeks of aging to go. This may be a whiskey bock if I can get a freshly drained barrel from our friends down at Jack Daniels Distillery. I don't see this being a problem, but you'll be kept informed. Look for this Bock to be on tap near the end of March or the beginning of April. The TKD mug club members will get first taste, so join now because I guarantee this rare lager will not last long. We are still pouring the Schaetzer's Revenge Porter and have a few barrels left, so be sure to try it, or try it again. It's very smooth and tasty, not too heavy with nice roast malt qualities. On the Cask Conditioned front we are currently jerking Pull Chain Pail Ale from the ferkin. My hat is off to assistant brew guy Rob Morton as this is an extra tasty pale ale. In preparation for St. Patrick's Day I brewed a back
up batch of Sheepshead Stout for you thirsty sippers. Rest assured we
won't run out on the big day. Also, as always, we will have our Session
Ale "Celtic Ale" on tap. This is the brew formerly Your pratical brewer, Jim Olen
January 8, 2002 Happy new year from the Brewhouse. I've been delinquent on beer related news and info, so I'll bring you up to date. First of all, 2001 has been a great year for beer production at the Ale House. We've beat our old production record of 1315 barrels set in our first full year in business in 1998. Most brewpubs rarely top their honeymoon year, but thanks to everybody out there, or thanks to the help of your taste buds, we did it. I haven't completed the tax forms, so the number isn't official, but we sent over 1315 barrels of beer to our serving tanks last year. We squeaked by that old number to about the 1320 barrel mark, or just under. I'd like to thank my assistant Rob Morton, beer sales guy for offsite accounts Mike Bieser, and the service staff and bartenders of the Ale House. Also, events such as the Summer Sizzle in the Third Ward and the Craft Beer tent at the State Fair all contributed in putting us over the top. Three cheers!!!
We have spun off Louie's Demise Ale production for off
site draft accounts to the very capable and skilled hands of the award
winning brewers up at Pioneer Brewing Company of Black River Falls.
Don't worry, we still make Louie's Demise here too. This will free up
production for a larger variety of Session beers for your enjoyment.
The next Session beer to go on tap in a day or two is the all new Schaetzer's Revenge Porter. This is a nicely balanced dark brown porter that goes very well with our big porterhouse steak and lots of other items from our menu. But who is Schaetzer and why revenge? Well, do you know the story behind the Louie's Demise Ale? Mr Wm. Schaetzer is the gentleman responsible for making Louie famous. Still don't get it? Then read Louie's Demise beer coaster next time you're in. More details on Mr. Schaetzer to follow in future editions of the Grist. Great Fermentations! Jim "Practical Brewer" Olen PS - A portion of Schaetzer's Revenge Porter is currently being aged in a 53 gallon wooden Jack Daniels whiskey keg. It will rest there a week then condition in a handful of firkins for taste bud trippin' version to be called Tennessee Porter. Look for it in about three weeks. Mug Club members will get first chance to taste this very limited edition cask condidioned ale. Want to be first too?? Sign up for the Tappa Kegga Day Society mug club and become a member.
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