Jensen Haus Home Brewing

Well I have survived BockFest in New Ulm, MN. What an awesome time. I’m amazed at how little stupidity there was at an event like this. Its clear this event attracts the non-stupid drinkers. Clearly, I need to talk to my Father-in-Law about some deer skins and antlers. Check out the Flickr Gallery here.

Officially opened a bottle of the Copper Ale tonight. I had strategically put a single bottle in the fridge before I left for work yesterday so I could let it chill all day. Other than the inevitable chill haze, this stuff is awesome. I’m struggling to find a good comparison in a commercial brew but it reminds me of Sam Adams Winter Ale but not as dark. The closest comparison I’ve thought of would be an Oktoberfest. As the single bottle was successful, I put the whole batch in the fridge to halt the priming.  It should have close to 36hrs to settle the yeast and chill haze out. This should be an excellent drinking this stuff while waiting in line for Bockfest on Saturday morning. Hopefully I can keep myself from drinking all of it before I got to visit my parents in March. That’s the best part of Home Brewing. When you have a successful batch and you can share it with other people and get to say, “I made this.” Check out my Flickr Gallery of the Copper Ale here.

I saw a 6er of this in amongst the packs of Sierra Nevada selection at Hyvee this last weekend and I was highly intrigued. I really like a good grapefruity IPA and I’ve been on a quest to find one that has a similar flavor to Granite City’s Duke of Wellington IPA. Sierra Nevada has answered my prayers and it sounds like they are making this a permanent addition to their line up. This is an incredibly good beer and you’d never know it was a 7.2% brew. Fantastic “grapefruity” hoppyness that makes or breaks an IPA for me. Not a heavy brew as evidenced by my drinking of 4 bottles. I’ve been evangelizing this brew to my friends who I know like a good IPA and it appears that the distribution is a little spotty around the area. Sunday was the first time I’ve seen this stuff in the store. It should be more widely available in the near future. (so I hope anyway)

• Press Release
• Reviews

With Bockfest fast approaching, and the Copper Ale still “priming”, I wanted to test it to see how it was doing. So this last Saturday night, I put a bottle of it out on the deck to chill for two hours and popped the bottle. It obviously needs a few more days to finishing building the final carbonation levels but it tastes fantastic. It would benefit heavily from being cold aged for a solid 48hrs to get the chill haze to settle out.  Its surprisingly clear at room temperature however. Irish Moss is a miracle product I tells ya. Its a very triumphant moment after the huge failure that was my Holiday stout. Alton Brown was right. Sanitization is the key. The trick I used this time around was to run all the equipment I could possibly fit in my dishwasher through a full cycle. That way the equipment is heated above the magical 170 Degree mark for a considerable length of time. I also put about a tablespoon of powered sanitizer in the soap launcher in my dishwasher. I do need to come up with some way to get my 5gal Carboy in to my dishwasher and get it to be stable. Right now it won’t stand up straight. I’d also like to find or make a drying rack for for my 1L bottles. The standard bottle racks from places like Midwest don’t support a 1L bottle and I really don’t like storing the bottles and my carboy right side up.

My most recent batch of brew is in the bottle and should be ready for a sample in about a week or so. Ideally, I’d like to have it ready to go for BockFest. I’d love to take along a few bottles/growlers of it to give to some friends to sample. I brewed this batch of Copper from a kit I’d ordered from Midwest Brewing Supplies. Midwest is where I ordered my original brewing kit and brew pot from and they’ve been amazing. Great customer service, fast shipping and excellent products.

I’d like to personally welcome you to my shiny new website. I’m a rookie (my 4th batch has just been bottled) Home Brewer and to feed my other hobby of being a nerd, a website such as this seemed like a fantastic idea. So there you have it. If you are a fellow brewer, check back once I’ve got some photos up and running.