Hey Frenchie, got any wine?

I now have a need to go back a visit some of my favorite french wines. If you are one of those folks that hate the French and will not drink their wines, I thank you. It leaves more for me. 2009 was a banner year for Bordeaux wines and it has rubbed of on the Rhone valley also. These are wonderful, complex, elegant wines that sometimes leave you speechless. But what you do not know is that some of these wines are at a very reasonable price. What is reasonable you say? Anywhere between 10 and 30 dollars will get you a fine wine. I have herd people tell me that I'm full of crap and a few other choice words but when I show them the bottles and they taste the wine, their hooked. So without further ado, I will give you my choices of French wines that will complement you cellar.


WHITES

CHATEAU GUIBON ENTRE-DEUX-MERS 2010

It goes great with chicken or fish!

This is a wonderful blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle. The Entre Deux Mers region is located between the Dordogne and Garonne rivers in the southeastern area of France in Bordeaux Region. This is a dry white wine with a citrus, peach and mineral flavor that leaves you with a crisp clean taste and a slight grapefruit finish. I love this wine and I always have a bottle in my wine cooler ready to go when the mood strikes me.




LES MARTINIERES SPECIAL FRUITS DE MER 2010

This is a Muscadet wine from Loir et Cher the Loire Valley. A grapefruit flavor with a clean mineral taste (those little bubbles on the back of your tongue) and light  body. A great summer wine between 7 and 12 dollars it's very affordable to keep a half a case on hand. Another great wine that goes with mussels, clams and oysters and will be a great compliment with a light bodied fish. I can't wait to visit France and have this wonderful wine at the wineries. 
















REDS


CHATEAU LOUISTEAUNEUF 2009

Chateau Louisteauneuf is from Mendoc of Bordeaux Region and has a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. A very elegant wine with a meld of complex flavors that work together. The tannins are not overbearing but gives it a wonderful finish. This wine will go with beef, lamb and a nice red pasta sauce. Don't be afraid of the prices of Bordeaux wines. Many of these prices are very reasonable under 30 dollars a bottle which is great for Bordeaux wines. You will just have to do a little shopping to find the one you want.

CHATEAU LANESSAN DELBOS BOUTEILLER 2000

Chateau Lanessan is in the Haut-Mendoc area of the Bordeaux Region. The wine is made up of 60 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 35 percent Merlot, 4 percent Petit Verdot and 1 percent Cabernet Franc. This reticular wine is an awesome wine for right around 30 dollars. Not 50, not 100, and not 1000 dollars, 30 dollars. If you are having a special night, trying to impress someone and not wanting to break the bank or just wanting to have a great wine this is the one you want to buy. The elegant plum and black cherry flavor and a balanced tannin will make you sit back and go aaaaahhhhhhhh. A full bodied wine for those cab junkies this will give you that extra layer of velvet elegance to make you want more. Shop around a little for this wine and you might find it on sale for a great price. 










To sum up, do not be afraid of French wines they might surprise you. And if you are a Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon fan, give some of these wines a try and you might be surprised! Enjoy and let me know what you think.

It's a local thing....

I love going to my local breweries. There is nothing better than having a fresh and crafted beer and a little conversation with the brewer. Not to mention the wonderful men and women that serve me the beer. (mostly the women)

TEQUESTA BREWING COMPANY

The first place that I love to go to is the Tequesta Brewing Company. It's located in Tequesta, FL which is right next to Jupiter, FL. I love the Gnarly Barley it's a great pale ale with the right

Awesome looking taps.

amount of hops to balance the flavor. They have several beers on tap and a couple of seasonals. They have a small cafe attached to the bar and a full restaurant with the brewery. The Corner Cafe has some great food and they pair the food with the beer. The Tequesta Brewing Company beer list has everything the beer nerd needs to quench their thirst. Just follow the link and you will not go wrong.

Haydee.

BB Kings Blues Brew

BB KINGS BLUES CLUB

If you have never been to BB kings then you don't know what you are missing. Most folks think that it's a great place for drinks and down home blues, but there is more to this club. BB Kings blues brew is a great pale ale that has a great flavor with a clean finish. Light on the hops but enough to balance the flavor to give you a nice flavor. Check out the bartender, Haydee when you get there (she is as nice as she is pretty) and tell her that Toby sent you..

 GUANABANAS
This is one of my favorite places to go. It's right on the intercostal in Jupiter and has that funky island local hang out feel to it. Speaking of funky island local, St. John Brewers has a great ale called tropical mango. It's a light pale ale with a balance of malt and hops with a great mango flavor. A one of a kind ale that is a must very if you can get your hands on one. If you can't find one, just come on over to Guanabanas and  get the tropical atmosphere with all of the mango ale you can drink. It's not a bad way to spend your Saturday afternoon.

St. John Brewers Tropical Mango Ale.

To sum up Support you local brewers and have a pint...or two... or three or whatever you feel like. Craft beer is here to stay and I for one am happy as all get out!

All bottled up and no place to go for two weeks!

Sanitizing the bottles and filling
them with the elixir of life.

It's bottling time and I was more than ready to get this beer into bottles and then wait..........again. Sanitizing is the most important thing in brewing beer. If it ain't clean, it ain't good beer. I sanitized 48 bottles and had to sanitize two more at the end of the bottle filling because, there was more beer! As I was filling the bottles, I was capping them also. I did pretty good, only screwed up two of them. The extra two bottled were the ceramic flip top lids (you know the green bottle ones) so it was pretty hard to mess those up. 

Sanitized caps on the bottles and ready for the capper.

Once all of the bottles were capped. I stored them away and cleaned all of my equipment. Cleaning the fermenter was a pain in the ass but it is one of the chores of brewing beer. So after everything was cleaned and put away, I had a beer to celebrate! My first batch in the bottle and on the path to conditioning and ready for drinking. Waiting two weeks to let the bottles condition allows the beer to settle and mature for the right taste. When moving the finished beer from the fermenter to the bottling container, a sugar water mixture was added to pressurize and add CO2 to the beer for the bubbles.

Capping the bottles.

I have a smashing pumpkin ale that will be my next batch and that I will let sit in bottles until October. Nothing like having a great pumpkin ale for the fall. 

Hey Dude, I'm Making Beer!

So I have ventured in to the world of home brewing. I figure if I can make it for .50 to .75 cents a bottle instead of going out and spending around 5 or 6 bucks for a bottle, I'll have enough money to buy a bar in about 30 or 40 years..... that's if everything works out of course.

So for those of you that don't know the process of making beer, I'll give you lesson in home brewing.

STEP ONE.


Get yourself a home brewers kit. There are several places on the internet to purchase such kit from several places. I will not recommend any at this point but the kits are basic and cost anywhere between 30 bucks to a couple of hundred dollars. Depending on what you want to brew, you may need a secondary brewing kit which includes a carboy (it looks like a 5 gallon water bottle that you get at the grocery store.). With your kit you need to order you beer recipe kit. These kits range from porters to ales to Belgian abbeys to lagers to wheat beers. It's just a preference on what you want to start with. I started with a red irish ale which I think is the best everyday drinking beer.....just me.


STEP TWO.
BREWING PROCESS.


Your kit will complete with malts, yeast, malt extract, hops and other ingredients that it takes to make the beer for the kit you ordered. I ordered the 5 gallon kit so you need a bigger pot to make the beer with. Preferably a 6 gallon pot to start the boil with. I added 2 1/2 gallons of water to the pot and started to soak my malts for 20 minutes. This is what gives the beer its color and flavor. My kit called to soak the malts for 20 minutes or to 170 degrees. I let it soak for a bit longer to give it a bit more flavor. After the soak time for the malts, I brought the water to a boil and was ready to add the malt extract. The extract is very thick and comes in a half gallon bottle. (for other kits it may be different) Once it was at a boil, I took the pot off the fire and added the extract stirring as I added it. Once the extract was added, I put the pot back on the burner to bring it to a boil. Depending on the recipe, you may add hops at this time. This is a low boil and will happen for about 60 minutes. during this time depending on the recipe, you may add different ingredients to the recipe according to what is needed.

I had to switch from inside to outside because I could not get a boil going so I switched to my gas grill with a side burner to finally get the boil going. IN THE MEAN TIME........
I decided to have an Old Pecilier to pass the time. It would be a good thing to set timers to add your ingredients at specific times. If you are like me, a person who drinks beer, you will need timers to let you know when you need to add ingredients. For us who have CRS syndrome (can't remember shit) a timer is the way to go.





STEP TWO. 
SANITIZE.

It is a necessity to sanitize you equipment. It keeps the outside bacteria and wild yeast from fermenting your beer by mistake. It sucks when the beer taste like Natty light. So you must sanitize everything that comes into contact with the beer for at least 2 minutes in the sanitizer. DO NOT rinse the equipment out. Use it fresh from the sanitizer and go to the next step. SANITIZE EVERYTHING! NO QUESTIONS!

STEP THREE.
WORT.
The boil mix when you are finished is called wort or unfermented beer. This is a very critical stage in the life of beer because it is very vulnerable to outside influences. This is a very sterile mix and is ready for fermentation.  You must cool the wort to between 100 and 76 degrees to add the brewers yeast to start the fermentation. I cooled mine with the lid on to about 78 degrees and added my yeast at that time. When the wort is cooled, it must be transferred to the fermentation container and water added to reach 5 gallons. REFERENCE: the cleaner the water, the better the beer. If your tap water taste like shit, so will your beer. Use filtered or spring water for your beer. It makes better beer.


STEP FOUR.
FERMENTATION.

When you fill the fermentation container with the wort and water to make 5 gallons, you roll the container to mix the water and wort. Allow to settle and add the yeast. I had a dry yeast and during my water and wort process I kept my container covered. I added the yeast, filled the air lock with sanitizer and sealed the fermentation container. DEEP BREATH. The major process is finished. Now it is time to let the yeast do all of the work and FERMENT THE DAMN BEER! Sorry, in a bit of a hurry. I'll get in line and let the mix do it's job. IDEA! I'll go and drink different kinds of beer, and get ideas on how to make better beer! Well, it was a good idea to begin with but going to World of Beer on a Friday night with a band was great for the moment, but I never remember what I did the next day. CRS Syndrome.

So I am now a week into my fermentation process and I used the beer thief ( check you kit for this item)
to check my hydrometer reading and taste the beer. Understand that the beer is flat and is incomplete in the process but I think that my beer has potential. Another week or so in fermentation and I'll be ready to bottle. So much for this step and I hope I have given you the idea that anybody can make their own beer.As one of the instructions told me, it's like making mac and cheese!. OKAY! I'll give you the bottling part next time!