I’m forever blowing bubbles
Pretty bubbles in the air
I wish that’s the tune my Wheat Porter was playing, but since Sunday I’ve not seen a single bubble come out the airlock, or the lid bulge.
I'm not forever blowing bubbles
There has clearly been activity there – you can see the krausen (the foamy head of yeast that forms at the peak of fermentation and falls, leaving gunk at the side) has fallen, and there are little CO2 bubbles coming out of the beer.
There is activity - Krausen and CO2
Compared to the krausen from American v Britain Superpower IPA (dry-hopped Sunday with 4.1g each of Fuggles and Cascade), the Porter krausen is quite insubstantial.
For comparison, the Krausen (and dry hops) on the America v Britain Superpower IPA
Why I’ve not seen any airlock activity – that puzzles me. It could be that I missed it because the bucket was hidden in the fermentation chamber, but that’s unlikely because the lid didn’t bulge.
It could be because there’s a leak in the lid.
It could be that because I rehydrated the yeast using 250ml of wort and that the starter was very vibrant, that all activity took place in the first day. Maybe the lid did bulge then and I forgot?
Or maybe, horror of horror, my screw-ups on Sunday mean that there’s lots of unfermentable sugars.
Or maybe I didn’t aerate enough?
Or… dammit. Here was me thinking I’d gotten past the stage of worrying about my homebrew!
There’s only one way to find out whether things are going smoothly or not, and that’s to take a hydrometer sample. Maybe I’ll try that tonight – after 4 days I’d expect the gravity to be around the 1.020 mark.
Last night I live-twittered – with photos – my way through a visit to Popeye in Ryogoku.
If there is one bar in Japan I’ll miss when I leave here, it’s Popeye. Just look at the menu – it’s two pages, changes daily, and lists between 40 and 70 beers ON TAP. Click on the images to see the detail of what they had last night – apologise for the quality but unless I reduced down the colours, the shadow of my hand taking the pics just looked creepy:
Popeye's daily beer menu - side A
And side B:
...and side B
The menu is constantly changing – which means there’s always something new to try, but also create a headache (or should that be toothache) for Chuwy at Boozelist. Chuwy – hope you find the menus above useful for updating the site!
One of the unique features of Popeye is “Hop Heart”, shown at the top left of side B of the menu.
Here they run one of the hand pumped beers through hops while pouring it. In the picture below you can see the two small tanks at the bottom containing the hops:
The heart of Hops Heart
Last night’s hops were Amarillo and Cascade. I’ve no idea how often they change the hops – I hope it’s daily; I should probably ask next time I go.
Last night’s Hops Heart beer was Ozenoyukidoke IPA which they had on hand pump and CO2 draft. That means one single beer was available in four different ways in the same bar – hand pump, hand pump through cascade, hand pump through Amarillo, CO2 draft – mind boggling!
Where else can you get 4 versions of the same beer?!
This was quite an interesting tasting, but very confusing! Ozenoyukidoke has a little bit of “that IPA taste” that I don’t like on hand pump. Through cascade, “that IPA taste” was much stronger – but through amarillo and on CO2, it was far weaker. The natural deduction is that cascade could be in some way responsible for the taste that I don’t like, which would be logical because I usually taste “that IPA taste” in American beers, but is completely illogical because I don’t taste it in Anchor Liberty (which is cascade only) or in the beers I’ve made with cascade!
The bar (taken a few weeks ago)
Last night’s beers, and what I thought of them:
- Hakusekikan Samurai Rice Ale – Nice light bitterness, not sweet (Hakusekikan make the Brown Ale that I likes so much at Ushi Tora – a brewery for me to keep an eye on, I think)
- Isekadoya Beer Pale Ale – Lovely and hoppy with a good bitter aftertaste
- Isekadoya Beer Brown Ale – Bitter and caramel and a little hoppy.. good!
- Nogne 0 IPA – I tried this at Ushi Tora and didn’t like it. Last night was better than Ushi Tora – nicely bitter – but it still has the taste I don’t like.
- Iwatekura Oyster Stout – Fizzy black creamy stout but not heavy. Very much like my Chocolate-elss Coffee Stout Experiment without the coffee taste.
- Nide Cream Ale – A pils but not a pils. I’m not a huge fan of Nide (made by Baird). It’s a bit non-descript – but then I think that’s the point: It’s made to be sold to Japanese. Astoundingly many people go to Popeye and order Asahi Super Dry – I mean, Jesus! That’s completely missing the point of Popeye.
- More Isekadoya Beer Pale Ale – the last beers of happy hour. Between 5-8pm you get free food with every beer marked with a crown on the menu – all the beers above qualified.
- Speakeasy Prohibition Ale – as expected from the Big Daddy IPA, I really didn’t like this. It has the taste I don’t like.
- Stone Levitation Ale – again, it has the taste I don’t like. This is definitely either a hop thing or a method thing – I must track this down. It was really hard to finish Levitation and Prohibition.
- Onidensetsu Red Ale – a free pint for becoming a Popeye member. Rather non-descript red ale, very little hops. What’s funny is that in Korea, I used to hunt out a beer called Red Rock – which is like a weaker version of this red ale – because it has some taste, unlike Cass or OB or Hite. This isn’t a bad beer – like Nide isn’t a bad beer – it just doesn’t cut the mustard when stacked up against the other competition here.
- Ozenoyukidoke IPA on hand pump, on hand pump with cascade, on hand pump with amarillo, and CO2
Just some of the taps at Popeye
On the menu at the bottom of the Hops Heart section, it seems to imply that you can add extra cascade or amarillo to any beer – but I don’t know whether that’s true or whether the Japanese is misleading. After drinking all that, it wasn’t advisable for me to do any further exploration. I left Popeye 10,000 yen poorer but feeling priceless happiness.
Darn it! Just noticed that on side B they have a whole range of dark Hakusekikan beers, including the brown ale. I have to go back to Popeye soon!
Homebrew Japan 
June 18, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I once had 5 gallons of locally grown, squeezed and purposefully non-pasturized apple cider that I paid a pretty penny for go kaput. I was trying to make a nice cider…no fermentation AT ALL. Finally got so frustrated that i dumped some bread yeast in. I was happy to see it bubble, but watched it bubble on down the drain… I feel your pain! But you had some fermentation, so you may be ok!
June 18, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Popeyes is good but it’s getting way too expensive and I don’t rate their quality as the best you can get. Not sure about their pint sizes, either. Interesting that you mentioned bubbles, as a Popeye’s pint has none.
Stil, 70 taps is awesome. I do like the Ozenoyukidoke IPA and the dry hopped ones are really good. My tooth is gonna take at least 2 weeks to be fixed (or killed, as it were – root canal), so until then I’ve gotta stay off the juice, both to protect my tooth and to pay for the bloody treatment!
The Hakusekikan heavy artillery is good,unlike thier lower alc brethren. Carumina by Hidatakayama was on tap until recently in Towers. Another fine heavy brew.
Good post and thanks for taking pics of the menus! Did you know that Popeye’s charges 50yen a sheet for those things? Cheeky!
June 18, 2009 at 10:12 pm
DH: Yeee haaa! Just taken a sample of the Wheat Porter and it’s at 1.020. I don’t care what black magic has gone on to result in zero airlock activity – I’m just happy it worked!
Chuwy: No bubbles? Are you talking about the hand pumped ale? No bubbles would be normal for those – traditionally cask ale is relatively flat. I’ve never noticed any of the CO2 beers to be flat, ever.
June 18, 2009 at 10:23 pm
No, I was on about their ‘normal’ beers. Not NO bubbles, to be exact, just a bit on the flat side, or at least that’s how I see them. They are CO2 and I’m not sure but I think it’s turned down a notch. Some beers thats ok, others, well…
I just can’t help thinking that the beers there are not as good as they could be or were, a while back. Still not bad but I think you can get a better pint elsewhere. I could be wrong but that’s my opinion. I do like Popeyes though. But it’s not my favourite place. THe Thrash Zone owner sometimes plays with his CO2 too. I’ve caught him a few times turning the thing completely off. Then he turned it way up and the beer came out too gassy. It’s interesting to experiment but I’m not so sure the beers were designed with that in mind. The CO2 beer with no gas just came out flat. Not like a real ale, just flat. Real ales are lovely and I wouldn’t dream of adding extra fizz to them. The way they come out bears testament to both brewer and the landlord who conditions the stuff in his cellar or small room nearby. I just worry if its quantity versus quality, over at old Pops place. I guess I’m the only one who dares to challenge the doctrine that Popeyes is God almighty. Am I a craft beer heretic? Will I be cast out?
I hope not. It’s cold outside… …and there’re wolves.
June 19, 2009 at 12:56 am
Agree 100% with Chuwy. The beer condition at Popeyes is not what it could or should be. Still its a great place in terms of atmosphere and choice…so flip a coin as to the places true merit
June 19, 2009 at 10:00 am
I had issues with the beers at Ushi Tora – my last beers were practically flat. I’ve notice inconsistent carbonation at Aldgate once or twice (but that’s over a 3 year period). And I’ll no longer order beer at Hub for fear of getting a pint of uncarbonated mess. But as yet, I’ve yet to have a problem with Popeye – save for the hand pulled beers. I’ve yet to get a head of foam from Popeye or a beer that is flat (except the hand pulled).
That said, I’ve not made it to Popeye more than a handful of times. My main reason for going there is that I can be sure they will have hoppy beers – other bars like Dry Dock, Vivo, etc don’t have so many beers on tap and there’s a high chance that I could get there and be faced with bottles only.
I’ll be back in Popeye’s tonight with a bunch of the homebrew guys. Will see whether anyone notices carbonation or quality issues.
June 19, 2009 at 11:44 am
I’m not completely sure but I think ushi tora uses the popeyes system. The beers there seem similar but I kinda prefer neither bar. Perhaps popeyes has the more interesting atmosphere. The food at popeyes is nice but small portions and expensive. Their prices have gone up, along with most other bars in Tokyo, despite this ‘recession’. It’s got to the stage where people cut back on drinking, so I’m not sure if the bars are making that much more. I’d love to drink any beer at any size I wanted and not have to worry aboubthe cost. Sadly, I don’t live insuch a world and my salary is only so big/small. haven’t been to popeyes for ages. Would love to meet you guys but my tooth is still in treatment so you’ll just have to get by without my annoying presence. Dint want to make a fuss but see how you like the overall experience. I’ve had a few bad pints there. A friend once got a Guinness that was disgusting. I’ve had the same beer on two visits that was completely different quality. I thought at times the beer arrived so fast it was worrying. At times it seems more like a beer factory than a beer bar and a legendary one at that. One friend thought it was the best bar in Asia. He could be right. The annoying thing is that is could and perhaps for the prices should be better. Rant over. I don’t hate the place. I love it. If it was non smoking and had uk pints or taster sets that you could choose yourself, I’d love it even more.
June 21, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I see from your picture that you have dry hopped with loose hops… doesn’t this cause problems with bits of hops and seeds getting everywhere?
I was considering Dry Hopping my latest brew and have some Stainless Steel Tea Ball Infusers to put the hops in.
I do like the idea of the hops fully mixing with the beer but I’ve had bottling problems when hop seeds get stuck in the Bottling stick and you get beer all over the floor! :)
August 9, 2009 at 12:35 pm
hey, sounds like this brew turned out alright for you. i’m having the same problems right now. visually it looks exactly like the picture you took, with a small ring of krausen scum on the sides and very little white foam on the surface. i never saw any bubbling action. i even repitched another pack of yeast after 48 hours after trying to aerate it again to seemingly no avail. any advice?
August 9, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Kevin,
Take a hydrometer reading. Most likely gas is escaping somehow but you can’t see it. You should be able to see from the hydrometer reading whether fermentation is happening.