As winter officially wraps up this week and spring rolls in, I took a look back at a rather interesting seasonal that caught my eye as I weaved through the beer isles. That particular seasonal is Karl Strauss’ Full Suit. Now when I saw this winter ale looking back at me from the shelves, I couldn’t help but ask “Does San Diego even have a winter, let alone Los Angeles?” Well this particular year we did, and a rather cold and wet one at that. So I decided to give this Belgian infused Brown-Ale a go as Sven’s first official beer review.

Editors side note: please bear with us as this is Sven’s first review. It is well known that he is not as eloquent and lyrical as Bren with his fancy flow of verbage.

1. Taste: At first sip, you instantly recognize the Full Suit as your run of the mill Brown-Ale; full of a rustic maltiness that warms the body. The roasted earth tones are delightfully simple and welcoming, but as you delve deeper into the brew you can pick up touches of pepper and fruity Belgian nuances. The blend of the two styles plays quite well and creates an interesting melody of warm malty basics and fresh fruity complexities. However, in the end, this Belgian Brown-Ale needs to be desired to be appreciated. I found myself liking it if the mood suited it, and for that I give it a 3.5 out of 5 for taste.

2. Texture: All too often when two beer styles are combined there is a clash of flavors and texture that can spoil the experience. This is not the case for Full Suit. The Brown-Ale traits remain dominant in the case of texture, with a mildly full feeling on the tongue. What is odd though, the beer feels a touch flat but has a zesty finish. It is curiously delightful and refreshing all the while leaving a lingering taste in your mouth beckoning you back for another sip. 4 out of 5 for taste.

3. Appearance: Some beers have a particularly magical aura once poured into a glass, but the Full Suit didn’t dazzle me. It had a pleasant medium brown to amber transition which fed into a relatively short, light, and airy head which faded quicker than a pair of jeans. Look closely and you can pick out a few carbo-bubbles cascading up the brew. I wasn’t disappointed but wasn’t amazed. Mediocre at best, and for that a 2.5 out of 5.

4. Aroma: Well a great deal of a beer’s aroma comes from its head. Those lil carbo-bubbles burst with all the subtleties and nuances, letting the drinker know what makes it unique from others of it kind. With the Full Suit, the head is quick to dissolve. It vanishes in an almost as quickly as your poured it. If you are quick enough you do manage to catch some hits of crisp herb from the hops but all too often, before the brain can translate the smell is fleeting. Wishing for more, I have to give a 2 out of 5.

5. User Friendly: Being a limited production seasonal beer, the Full Suit is a double edged sword when it comes to being user friendly. During the cold months, this beer is perfect for sitting at the ski lodge bantering with your buddies about your escapades on the slopes earlier in the day. But this is not a beer you would want to be socializing over with any temperature over 64°F and for that we can only give it a 3 out of 5.

Beer Name: Full Suit

Beer Type: Belgian Brown-Ale

Scores

Taste: 3.5

Texture: 4

Appearance: 2.5

Aroma: 2

User Friendly: 3

Total: 15 out of 25

A Full Suit not playing with a Full Deck.

Keep the paint up and the rubber down. Ride safe. -Sven

As the second batch of highly experimental Bren and Sven brew ages gracefully in our elaborate beer cellar, I’m sorry, I mean a series of cupboards in hall closet, I thought it would be the ripe time to discuss our newest addition to our brewing equipment. Brewing beer is an extremely delicate process. You first have to bring all your ingredients, minus the yeast, to  roaring boil and when done you need to immediately bring it to a tolerable temperature for the yeast to work its magic in. If not you got a funky smelling broth of very very complicated flavors. So how do you tackle this temperature variant? Behold the counter-flow chamber…

*Photos coming soon*

What the hell does that thing do, one might ask. Applying the laws of physics and thermodynamics, we use this contraption to exchange heat (energy) from the wort (beer) with cold running water. In simple terms, hot wort (beer) flows through a pipe within the chamber in one direction. For the sake of this, lets say from left to right. Cold water is then pumped in from right to left in the larger chamber. As the water flows in the chamber and over the inner piping, the temperature from the beer is transferred to the cold water. The end result is a cooler wort, perfect for pitching your yeast to make your splendid beer… Yay!

A handful of brew suppliers sell manufactured counter-flow chambers.  Be warned, they can be quite costly, but worth it. There is a more fun and cost effective way of getting your hands on a counter-flow chamber, make it yourself. Nothing better than a lil home brew DIY. Sure you won’t have the professional look and engineering of a store bought CFC, but when was home brewing anything but professional?

What you’ll need:

• (1) 6in x 2ft PVC pipe
• (2) 6in PVC caps
• 10ft of copper piping     *3/8″ OD (outer diameter) recommended
• (2) Female to Male Compression fittings *3/8″ recommended
• (2) Barb attachments for the compression fittings
• (2) Standard hose fittings
• PVC cement
• Expoxy cement

First things first, the roughest part of the entire project is getting your copper piping into a small enough coil. When dealing with a copper tubing of this small of a diameter, it becomes very soft and malleable which means that it is prone to crimping and kinking. What we ended up doing, was buying another PVC pipe of a smaller diameter than 6 inches. A 4 inch pipe seemed ideal. Take the smaller PVC pipe and use it as a guide as you wrap the copper piping around the PVC. Take your time and you’ll end up with a clean and crimp free copper coil.

* If you have a bending tool that works for soft metals and can handle a small enough diameter as such, then you can go *bleep* yourself. Only kidding. If you have it, then great.

Now take your 6″ PVC caps and drill one hole in each end so you can fit and set your garden hose fittings.

Take the 6in x 2ft PVC pipe and drill two holes along the side wall. You want to drill one on each end along the same side. Be sure to note for any overlap the PVC caps may cause later on and adjust accordingly.

Set your copper coil into the PVC tube, and carefully thread the ends through the two drilled holes along the side wall. You will want to leave at least a half inch to an inch of the copper pipe exposed. This will allow you to be sure that there will be no cross contamination once the wort is flowing. If you are worried of water leaking through the seams, feel free to apply some heat and water resistant caulking.

Take your compression fittings and attach them to the exposed copper pipe ends. Fix and thread any additional fittings or adapters for connecting your hose to deliver and receive the wort. We used  5/16″ barb connectors for the piping we have from our brew kit.

Apply PVC cement along the inner rim of both PVC caps and fit them to the 6in x 2ft PVC pipe. Set and let cure.

And there you have it, your very own counter-flow chamber. It almost looks like a homemade dirty bomb. Feel free to fabricate your own stand form plywood, scraps, or metal to prevent the chamber from rolling while in use.

Well, after much field research I’m happy to say I’m back and ready to write some riveting reviews on my favorite liquid muse. So over my travels (and by travels I mean frequent stops to my local fine spirits shop and pub) I stumbled upon an interesting beast of German brewing madness. A highly acclaimed Bavarian  Wheat Doppelbock from the brew masters of G. Schneider and Sohn, Aventinus has finally made it’s way to my glass to be weighed, measured, guzzled, and found wanting. Sorry, my funky fruit favoring connoisseurs of the wild wing of wheat wanderings, this beer was just to out there for me.

1. Taste: Well this is where the great Aventinus both soars and sinks. To be completely honest, it is a flavorful masterpiece of the savory side of the sweet and fruity flavor spectrum. With its thick clove, vanilla, and banana flavors, and hints of chocolate, this beer is a blitzkrieg of flavor force. Now for some this may be an awe inspiring and divine moment of beer indulgence, but for me it was like sucking down sickly-sweet cough syrup. This could be due to my relatively young taste buds, or because I have recently been on an American IPA kick and have become used to powerful crisp flavors that are quick to fall off the tongue, but even so, after taking these external variables into consideration I still believe that this beer was packing way to much of a sweet flavor punch and for that I must only give it a 2.5 out of 5 for taste.

2. Texture- Continuing this Blitzkrieg of force, the beer’s texture is another overpowering and overwhelming aspect of this Bavarian beast. Now the strong sickly sweet flavors of the beer could have been balanced out by making the beer lighter, perhaps a little more carbonated, and with a less lingering mouth feel, but unfortunately this beer has the same consistency of a glob of mid-cold lung butter. Sorry to be so harsh but honestly if you are going to go full belt with the flavors don’t drown your patron with viscus NyQuil. And don’t think I’m being picky about my thick stuff, I love a good chocolate oatmeal stout that’s thick enough to chew, but the differences is that the stout is bitter and in some ways dryer than this savory monster so its easier to take down. It would seem that this beer is trying to fight on two fronts, a blitzkrieg of flavor on the west and thick onslaught of texture on the east, and as the Germans should know by now this never works. So for forgetting their history I will have to give Aventinus a 1.5 our of 5 for texture.

3. Appearance-Despite my ranting about the texture and taste of this German  monster, I must say that when this beer fills a large glass stein it is enchanting. It’s thick dark body and solid head bring to mind the images and senses of an aged Bavarian beer hall on a cold winter night. You look into the beer and it as if you just walked into a warm hall, the dim light of the fire at the end plays shadows on the faces of your fellow patrons, you feel the weathered cobblestone under your feet that has been worn from centuries of traffic, and your nose is filled with the sweat hearty smells of venison cooking in the back kitchen.  Now you can see why I so vehemently destroyed this beer in the prior two categories. When you look that good and only provide the satisfaction of hoppy NyQuil it is a little disappointing, but on looks alone I will have to give this beer a 4.5 out of 5.

4. Aroma-There was nothing particularly remarkable about the aroma. The beer smelt pleasant, and as the aroma should, it gave you a preview as to what your taste buds were about to experience. Overall it smelt like a complex glass of beer, and for that I give it a 3.5 out of 5.

5. User friendly- This is a situational beer. If your going to tackle it, and despite my condemnations I recommend you do, make sure you do it with other beer brains. It’s definitely a session beer, something to be consumed over conversation by the fire, or with a hearty meal of wild meats. With the right friends you can compare notes and really spend the time to delve deep into the complexities of this beer, thus expanding your brew knowledge and developing the sense of kinship among your fellow beer lovers. For this, the beer deserves a 4 out of 5.

Beer Name: Aventinus

Beer Type: Wheat- Doppelbock

Scores

Taste: 2.5

Texture: 1.5

Appearance: 4.5

Aroma: 3.5

User Friendliness: 4

Total: 16 out of 25

A Bavarian Bomb!

Live the Journey-Bren

So if you’re a dude and have a profound love, or at least respect, for automobiles of all sorts you’ve probably heard of this little show called Top Gear. Little, who am I kidding? Top Gear is HUGE! To be honest we are not sure if the Top Gear show has a defined budget, it’s that big.

So lets fill in those who are a bit unfamiliar to Top Gear. Top Gear is a British automotive magazine show (take Car & Driver and put it on the tele) that puts a twist on the concept of car reviews. With hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, Top Gear takes all cars of all sorts and does what automotive publications do, review them but with flair. This simple description is by far an over simplified concept of the show. I could sit here and write you a term paper all about the show, but I digress (such a smug response).

The issue of this rant is that on Nov 21, 2010, on the History Channel, a US rendition of the world popular show will be debuting. And Bren and I are worried. From what we have seen in the previews, the formula that has made the ever popular British version popular will be applied here stateside. Which is fine, we’ll get to enjoy the ground breaking cinematic footage of a cutting edge Lamborghini racing around a circuit, the quirky series of challenges with old time piece cars. But will this Americanized version live up to its predecessor?

We think it is highly unlikely that Top Gear USA will match or outdo what the original has done. Besides having a ridiculous budget and camera crew, Top Gear has become something special because of its hosts. Clarkson, Hammond, and May: three somewhat ordinary yet dysfunctional men who weren’t “automotive experts” but have managed to make even the most mundane engineering car jargon fun and interesting. The three of them had some minor history in media prior to Top Gear, but it was this show that elevated them to grandeur. These three men took cars of pristine caliber and would review without discretion. Just because a car carries a $250K price tag and dawns a prancing horse on the hood, doesn’t make it perfect. This ‘tell it like it is’ way of rating cars gave the trio reputability, unlike other publications that praise the car relentlessly because they were lucky enough to be given the car.

So who do we have for Top Gear USA? Tanner Foust, professional drift and rally driver turned wannabe auto-media commentator. Go ahead and turn to the Speed Channel, he’s on about 4 or 5 shows, all horrible. Adam Ferrara, comedian with numerous cameos on his more popular comedian buddy’s movies and a recurring role on Rescue Me. Rutledge Wood, who the hell is Rutledge Wood? He’s an alleged racing analyst/ expert who is employed by Speed Channel. All in all, we have reasonable suspicion that this hodgepodge of so called hosts will lack the character and spark that the true Top Gear hosts have created.

And THE STIG, I almost forgot the mysterious tamed racing driver. Some say that he knows 2 facts about ducks, and both of them are wrong. And he isn’t machine washable, all we know is, that Top Gear’s most prominent icon is a masked figure known as The Stig. It has yet to be known if Top Gear USA will have a Stig like figure. I’m hard pressed to come to a conclusion if I would like to see a USA Stig or not. Preferably not, Foust will probably vie to be the test standard since he is such a “successful” race car driver.

Top Gear USA will try and mimic what the original Top Gear has done, but it will in most part, flop. It will at least in our eyes. All too often the media finds the need to take an already original idea and spoof it to make a quick buck. And it is sad, because this will most likely end in tarnishing the gem that is Top Gear.

As the ever witty and outspoken Jeremy Clarkson often closes with, “And on that bombshell… Good night.”

OK, so a while back I gave a little spiel about how there seems to be an awful lot of contradictory MOTY awards given by various motorcycling publications. Well if you want to call this adding fuel to the fire, so be it, but we at BrenandSven.com are trying to bring some solidarity to what seems to be an unsure world of moto-journalism. So here it is folks, the 2010 BS Motorcycle of the Year awards (and this MOTY is void bull $*!%). So this is how the BS-MOTY works. 6 categories: Superbike, Sportbike, Standard/Naked, Touring, Adventure, and Cruiser. Each category has one and only one winner and runner up. Wow, could it be any simpler? Cut and dry categories, and no one off categories to make sure all the newest and most expensive bikes get recognition (don’t think we aren’t aware of the game you magazines are playing).

2010 BS-MOTY Sportbike:

Unfortunately, for the Sportbike category, we are unable to crown a definite champion. The 600s this year have remained unchanged, and no big overhauls are not expected anytime soon. The Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R took the top spot last year for many if not all publications. Understandably so, it did everything right; a comfy, sporty, manageable canyon carver street machine that could rip it up on the Sunday trackday. But then there is this British sportbike that stood up from across the pond to take on the sportbikes from the Land of the Rising Sun. The Triumph Daytona 675 (cue angelic choir) took on the lean mean green machine last year and was agreeably deemed a very close runner up.

Many say that the two bikes are so comparable to each other in a performance based competion. The Kawi ZX-6R’s 599cc inline-4 brings roughly 124 bhp and 49 ft/lbs to the table, and the Trumpet Daytona’s 675cc inline-triple counters with 124 bhp and 53 ft/lbs. The Ninja will out run the Daytona on the back stretch 7 days a week due to the most of the power placed in the higher end of the RPM band, but the Daytona is quickest off the line and out the corners with its heavy torque and smooth delivery of power throughout the revs.

In a heads up competition, the two machines are near identical. each having the gives and takes that in the end result, cancel each other out and leave us back to the stale mate.

What did put the Ninja ZX-6R atop the podium last year was the fact that it was meant to be ridden on the street and track, blending comfort and performance in one package. The Daytona 675 on the other hand, had performance in mind and nothing else on the “to-do-list”. The very slim and sexy design (and exhaust note) of the 675 will wow any rider, but looks come at a sacrifice of comfort. The ZX-6R has a far more tolerable ergonomic setup compared to the Daytona 675.

The reining King...?

This is one of the reasons the Bren and Sven team has been unable to decide who wins for 2010. The two bikes from 2009 went unchanged, and remain the top two performers. Do we reward the Kawasaki again for its ability to do everything well, or do we place the crown atop the Triumph for its beautiful design and character at the cost of some sore rumps and wrists. We obviously know Sven’s choice….

Or the new King?

Check out the remaining awards for the 2010 BS-MOTY

Superbike /// Sportbike /// Standard-Naked /// Touring /// Adventure /// Cruiser