Beeronomics: The Hopopotamus™ Debuts and Time Inconsistent Preferences

Despite my claims that it is the Best Beer in the History of the World™, this the first iteration of The Hopopotamus™is good but could use some fine tuning.  The hop alchemy yielded stong citrus but fewer floral notes than I had hoped.  The yeast (Wyeast American Ale II was a wonder, hungry and effective - the final gravity of 1.010) was a good choice and I am pleased with the color and bitterness. But the hops don't sing in perfect harmony.  I slightly under-primed the bottles intentionally to give it a bit of a cask mouthfeel.  And it is definitely a beer that does not like to be served too cold.

UPDATE: Serving it at appropriate temperature transforms the beer.  It is really quite tasty when not chilled beyond recognition.  My fridge seems to have gone a bit hyperactive, once I solved the temp problem the beer really shined.  I am very pleased.  

I have an idea of making the The Hopopotamus™ as an annual experiment in hop alchemy.  Each year the same recipe save for a new mix of many hop varieties.  

Anyway, The Hopopotamus™ made me think of another way in which I fail to act like a textbook rational economic agent: I have a hoarding problem and therefore "time-inconsistent preferences.

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Do you ever get caught up in the moment - at a pub say - and have that extra beer that later you regret ("I really didn't need that last one and now I have a headache...")? These types of indulgences that lead to later regret - something you would do differently if you had the chance to do it again - are examples of what economists like to call "time-inconsistent preferences."

It applies to procrastination as well, putting of an unpleasant task (like mowing the lawn, say) and then having to do it later under worse conditions (longer grass) is another type of time-inconsistent preference.  

What the term refers to technically is when people make mistakes in their choices because they put too much weight on the present. If people acted like computers they would very rationally take into account all future time periods appropriately and we would never regret our actions (or at least those with predictable outcomes).

For me this behavior manifests itself in many ways but one of the most apparent is my tendency to covet.  I hate to consume something that I enjoy because once I do, I know it will be gone. This could be rational if I get enjoyment in the anticipation and in the consumption - by delaying consumption I could maximize the total enjoyment I get for the good. But for me it becomes a burden, delaying until finally to good itself degrades, or the optimal moment passes. In fact this why, after a period where I was building up a collection, I stopped cellaring wine. I could never deal with the whole waiting until the optimal time problem.

Well, this same type of time-inconsistent behavior bedevils me in beer brewing as well. Last weekend The Hopopotamus™ was finally ready for its debut, and the result is great.  But now I have the problem of coveting it - I want to drink it and it is fresh and ready now, it will only get worse through time, but I don't want to reach the day when it is all gone. So I find excuses not to drink it and eventually will have a number of bottles in the back of the fridge that are way past their sell-by date so to speak. I will then regret coveting it so much and wish I had been less stingy with it early.  

At least I have an understanding and a name for my disorder.

Beeronomics: The Hopopotamus™ Lives!

I am very pleased with my new all-outdoor brewing set-up, and was so determined to brew outdoors that The Hopopotamus™was delayed by the extended wet and cold weather we have had over the last few weeks.  But last Friday the weather cleared, I wrapped up all the tasks I had to do early, and set to brewing.

After a trip to Steinbart's, where many hops were purchased, I swung by and picked up The Beerax for moral and spiritual guidance and then set up my al-fresco brewhouse on my patio.  My new propane burner was fantastic and in no time at all I was ready to mash.  So mash I did.  Here is a picture of the grain sack early on in the mash.

 

Then it was time for the powdered malt extract andhere the trouble began.  After stirring the malt extract a little I noticed my floating thermometer was trying to float horizontally. I figured at fist this was due to malt extract - pretty gooey stuff before it dissolves - sticking to it.  But when I pulled it out I discovered, to my horror, that it had shattered at the bottom leaving behind glass and weighting pellets of unknown provenance. [In the picture you can see the offending thermometer] The thermometer itself which rests inside the glass container, was intact (and thus no mercury contamination - if there is any in these things anymore), so there was a few moments when I pondered continuing on and straining out the debris.  After all, the little weighting pellets couldn't be lead could they?  No one would be the wiser, I thought, and what is a little shard of glass in a beer anyway but a fun amusement?  

Fortunately, seeing my moment of weakness, Jeff looked at me in the eye and said "I 'aint drinking your beer man..."  Of course he was right and so a mad dash to Steinbart's ensued - in rush hour, argh! - to procure more grain and malt extract.  And in this cautionary tale lies yet another reason homebrewing is not a money saver - this will end up being an expensive beer, economies of scale indeed.  

So after a refreshing jaunt through Portland traffic, back we arrived and re-started the entire process with a new thermometer.  Once the grain bill was fully infused the fun began.  I, being the Beer-Whisperer, had an unconventional sense that I should add the low alpha acid hops early, creating a base of gentle bitterness that would then be layered upon with pungent, high AA, hops later in the boil.  Jeff, however, started getting skittish about the result being under-hopped and was strangely unimpressed by my Beer-Whisperer's certainty that my instinct was True and Good.  

This unsettled me.  Jeff is, after all, the Beer-Savant (or the Rain Man of beer as I like to call him) and my conviction started to wane, so I capitulated.  [Later Jeff would say that he was merely posing the question and not making a suggestion - so now I call him the passive-aggressive Rain Man of beer] I thus threw in an ounce of the ultra-high AA Simcoe hops and switched the order of the moderate AA Cascades and the lower Crystals.  More Simcoe and Amarillo were added late and in the picture below you can see the wonderful, glorious oil-slick of hop resin as well as the remaining Amarillo waiting in the carboy as my dry-hops.  

Maybe Jeff was right, thought I, as the final product in the carboy whispered to me that it was good.  I have had a bit of a under-fermentation problem recently, so I pitched two packs of Wyeast's American Ale II yeast, which reputedly is the Anchor Ale yeast.  Never used it before but it, of course, whispered to me that it was the One.

And so The Hopopotamus™sits in my basement fermenting away getting ready to make its world premier in another few weeks.

Over at the Beeronomics blog (which is simply a collection of all my Beeronomics posts from this blog) A commentator noted that perhaps my assertion that The Hopopotamus™name was a registered trademark was suspect as Roots has already had a beer of that name.  I had not known of (or more likely not remembered) the Root's brew, but in any event Craig spelled it Hoppopotamus whereas I go for the more parsimonious use of the p.  Regardless the registered trademark symbol was entirely a joke, but lest the feds get whiff of The Hopopotaumus™- and surely they will what with all the hops - I have switched to the TM symbol.  So there.

And I did rip-off the name, but not from Craig Nicholls, rather I stole it from The Flight of the Conchords.  Enjoy: