Alder Wood Smoked Beer(s)

I was recently extremely intrigued and inspired by the Chop and Brew episode on a beer made with 100% alder smoked malt. While I had kept up with Lars Garshol's blog for years, I had not thought a lot about Norwegian farmhouse styles since brewing a few beers with kveik a few years ago and had fallen behind on my reading. For one thing, I missed that Lars had released a book. For another, I missed how readily available many strains of kveik had become. Maybe what surprised me the most about the video though, was how there was suddenly the ability to buy malts made in the traditional Stjørdal style in the U.S. Within a day or two of watching the video I had placed an order with Sugar Creek Malt Co. and ordered Traditional Farmhouse Techniques so that I could set out on making a beer in this style for myself.

The book arrived first and it did not disappoint. An absolute page turner of history, culture, techniques, and ideas that, despite having read Lars' blog for years, felt new and exciting. I would easily put it in the top few beer/homebrewing books that I've ever read and feel that the information included, and the writing quality in terms of both style and clarity, are top notch. I tore through the book cover to cover and plan to go back to it again regularly.

Mash hops and the (non-traditional) juniper berries about to be added

When the malt arrived I was finally ready to make a Stjørdalsøl inspired beer and put together a very simple recipe of 9.5 lbs Stjørdal malt from Sugar Creek, 1.5 lbs of white sugar, and 1 oz of Hallertau Mittelfrüh. One half of the batch was fermented with a kveik strain (in this case Omega's Voss Kveik), making it (hopefully) close to a traditional Norwegian style. I had originally planned to ferment the other half with a lager yeast to make it closer to a traditional German Rauchbier to give myself a reference point for the flavor of the smoked malt, but after reading the book I was inspired to instead go with a Baltic (specifically Lithuanian) yeast strain in an effort to emulate a historical Gotlandsdricke. While Gotlandsdricke is a fairly different, and very geographically distinct, style it shares some commonalities in that it is a dark, smoked, farmhouse beer often made with juniper that was historically made with a farmhouse yeast so while this recipe might be farther from that style it should be in the ballpark. I had also wanted to try out the Jovaru yeast since it was first released but had not yet had an opportunity. Perhaps the most inauthentic part of this recipe was the use of Juniper berries rather than branches, but it was the closest thing I could easily procure and with the smoked malt being such a driver of the flavor I'm hopeful this won't cause a huge departure from the true flavors of these styles.

9.5 of the 10 pounds were used in this recipe
with the hope to save the last half pound for a future brew

Beautiful light brown color on the smoked
malt and a huge aroma that fills the room

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Medium brown, very clear. Off white head of thick bubbles is thin but lasts for a while.

Smell: This one explodes out of the bottle with aroma: Very high levels of smoke reminiscent of campfires and smoked meats but also some medicinal and earthy/funky/farm-like aromas. There is some pine, wood, and a touch of toffee in the mix but it is mostly dominated by the smoke and phenol character.

Taste: Taste starts off with a toasty and sweet malt that it is quickly swept away with phenolic smoke. The smoke overwhelms and lingers but other subtle flavors show up throughout with moderate cherry-like fruit and some subtle pine and citrus peel. Finish is lightly piney and citrusy with plenty of smoke that lingers long after the sip.

Mouthfeel: Very low carbonation and moderate body give this a surprising creaminess. Drinks a bit like a cask beer and does not come off nearly as strong in alcohol as it is. No astringency though the smoke lingers in the mouth with the creaminess.

Overall: I'm not entirely sure this was what I envisioned this beer to taste like when reading or hearing descriptions of the style but I'm very glad I made it. The smoke is different and complex and interesting and the other characters seem to blend well. It's hard to know how much of the character comes from anything but the smoked malt but the yeast, hops, and juniper berries may have added a little of the fruit/pine/citrus complexity that work well. If this beer is at all close to the traditional style I can see why so many in the region are taking the effort to not only brew but also malt their grain, it's unlike anything else and extremely enjoyable. I don't know if I'll ever brew this exact recipe again but if I do the only things I would likely change would be to make it more traditional with juniper branches instead of berries and possibly removing the white sugar. I also would likely try a lager strain in place of the Jovaru version, but I should do a full tasting of that half before deciding.

1/29/22
Fittingly cold and snowy brew day for Nordic inspired beer(s). Milled 9.5 pounds of Stjørdal malt on my father's mill. Mashed in at 154F and added half an ounce each of hops and juniper berries. Ran off after an hour rest, added sugar to first runnings and stirred, then put on burner and began heating during sparge. Sparged at 180F, added second runnings to kettle and brought to boil. Added the second .5 oz. dose of hops after about 15 minutes of boiling then boiled for another 60 minutes before chilling. Chilled to low 80s, ran into two separate 3 gallon fermenters and pitched separate yeasts. Placed next to each other and wrapped in towels in a fairly cool basement; hopefully they can rip through fermentation before their temps fall too much.

2/6/22
Fermentation very slow if still active but still a thin krausen.

2/17/22
No noticeable fermentation, should probably be packaged by now but currently between houses and this is staying at my parents' house while my equipment is in storage.

3/2/22
Kegged in separate 3 gallon kegs. Taste of both pre-carbonation is very smokey and interesting. Camp fire, pine, cherry, and interesting fruitiness all come through in both with the "Gotlandsdricke" version being dryer and emphasizing the pine and a touch more spicy phenols. TBD whether I carbonate and serve on draft or transfer to bottles.

3/18/22
Bottled both halves. 2/3s of the Stjørdalsøl version was left with the very low (~5 PSI at room temperature) carbonation while the other 2/3s (labeled Stj) received one Cooper's carbonation drop. All of the Gotlandsdricke bottles (except for a couple of 12 oz bottles) received one carbonation drop.

3/23/22
Brought a bottle of each of the low carbonation versions to a DC Homebrewers meeting on 3/19 and one bottle of the low carbonated Voss version to a BADASS meeting. Very well received in terms of it being interesting but not a beer that everyone necessarily enjoyed. Both versions are aggressively smokey with some interesting pine and fruit character. I find the Voss/Stjørdalsøl version has more cherry and citrus while the Jovaru/Gotlandsdricke version is a touch drier and more phenolic, though some felt it was less smokey and very different from the Voss. The phenol level is so high that it occasionally comes across to me as medicinal and chloraseptic-like but in small pours the beer is highly interesting and enjoyable. Hoping to do a more thorough tasting in the future.

4/13/22
Tasting Night, tasting notes above. Tasting notes were done on a small bottle of the low carbonated version of the Voss/Stjørdalsøl version. I may revisit in the future with a higher carbonated bottle or the Gotlandsdricke/Jovaru version.

StarTropics ‘22

My dog enjoying play time during the brew day

Yet another rebrew of a recipe that I’ve enjoyed in the past. As with my last brew (Breakfast Stout) I attempted to aim for my favorite of the versions I had previously made but there’s no guarantee I’ll get the same results. This hazy/New England style IPA recipe has changed a lot over time but for this attempt I’m going back to the version that was co-crowd favorite at the DCHB BBQ at 3 Stars brewing many years ago. While I did make a blog post about that beer and have what seems to be the recipe (it was only labeled as StarTropics and I've lost most of my recipes over the years) I don’t have a lot of my notes, including the water profile, mash temperature, and the temperatures for the hop rest. I’m also not sure these were the exact hop additions used, including the ratios being different than I remember and the 60 minute hop addition seeming fairly large. With the hoppy saison I recently brewed already tasting more hoppy and bitter than expected I decided to lean towards a less hoppy recipe for this one and cut the 60 minute hop addition (in this case a first wort hop addition) from 1.5 oz to .5 and used the Comet I have on hand in place of Nugget. I considered cutting the boil hops entirely but did not want to stray too far from the previous recipe and didn't particularly care for the last no boil hop NEIPA I brewed.

Due to the lack of notes from that recipe I decided to take detailed brew day notes this time in case this batch also turns out particularly well (or to have a reference if there’s things to improve upon).

Tasting Notes:

This beer never fully turned around (detailed process notes below) but I'll do a full set of tasting notes anyway.

Appearance: Nice golden hue and substantial, but not offensive to my tastes, levels of haze. Finally pours with a small head though it recedes to a small ring fairly quickly. Looks the part of a hazy IPA in most ways.

Smell: Sweet overripe fruit (melon, papaya) and earthy, hay-like, sweet malt dominate with a light touch of citrus peel and pine.

Taste: Subtle fruity and dank characters lead with a big sweet malt middle finishing with a piney and herbal bitter ending. Touches of lemongrass, pine, earth, and melon throughout but none of the big, bold, tropical fruit character I would expect from the hops used. Adding the acid and calcium chloride seems to have knocked out most of the rough edges but may have also tampered down on the desirable hop characteristics.

Mouthfeel: Relatively low carbonation but moderate body, there's a lingering effect in the mouth that I believe is due to the calcium chloride but may also be from the oats or hops. While it could still probably use a little more carbonation it's not unenjoyable at this level.

Overall: A relatively disappointing beer. Far from the worst I've made but the hops just don't pop with the fruity, juicy, tropical character that they should and instead the overall impression feels a bit green and lackluster. Next time I will likely cut out the sugar and golden naked oats and use all 2-row rather than Maris Otter to keep the malt bill more straightforward (though I might add some wheat), shift to using more of the hops in the boil and late hop stand and filter more of the hops during the transfer to the carboy in order to reduce the grassy/green/polyphenol characteristics, and probably adjust the water chemistry to use less calcium chloride or at least less in proportion to the amount of gypsum. In the end I don't hate this beer and have no plans to dump it but it doesn't excite me like the best versions of my StarTropics recipes have.

3/18/22
Weighed and milled grain in preparation for brewing today. Collected 4 gallons and added 2g CaCl and 1g Gypsum for the mash water. I had planned to use twice as much of each but ran out of gypsum. I also collected another separate 4 gallons for the sparge and added a quarter campden tablet to each.

All grains for the mash bill mixed together

3/19/22
Brewday

Mashed in with 3 gallons of 180F strike water hitting my target 155F.

Hop smells from freshly opened 2021 hop pellet bags from Hops Direct:

Comet: Light pineapple and mango, some other tropical and citrus aromas. Light grassy and earthy aromas.

Citra: more pungent papaya and mango. More lemongrass than grass/earth.

Azacca: again similar with some light pineapple and red papaya. Lighter earth/grass than comet but not really the lemongrass of Citra.

Galaxy: very different. Still some pineapple and tropical fruit smells and lemongrass but with a pungent pine/dank/funk character

All 4 smell enjoyable and carry similar tropical fruit notes. After walking out of the room the hops were in then re-entering I was hit with a huge blast of tropical fruit hop aroma, hopefully some of this makes it into the beer.

After 55 minutes I added about 1 gallon of water at 180F to the mash, stirred and then let sit for 5 more minutes. After vorlauf first runnings were run into kettle with 8 oz Batey’s turbinado sugar and 0.5 oz Comet hops. Stirred occasionally to well mix sugar during run off. Added last 4+ gallons of sparge water to mash and let sit for a 5 minute batch sparge before running off. After about 15 minutes of running off the kettle had reached 6.5 gallons and was put back on the burner to boil.

Preboil gravity of 1.042. As with my last batch this is a touch lower than estimated but shouldn’t be too far off by the end of the boil (estimated 1.050 instead of the expected 1.055). 45 minutes into the boil I added the immersion wort chiller. 15 minutes later I cut the flame and began chilling.

Overshot chilling slightly at got down to 170F before realizing. Cut chiller and added first 3 oz hop dose. Let sit for about 25 minutes before returning. Temperature had fallen to 150F so I added the second hop dose and started the chiller again. Stopped chiller after about 5 minutes and let sit at 120 for another 10 minutes. After chilling to just under 80F wort was transferred to a 6 gallon carboy and a pack of Wyeast London Ale III pitched. OG measured as 1.052, just a touch below expected. I'll need to either tighten my mill or just slightly lower my efficiency expectations going forward. No filter was used when transferring from the kettle so this one has a lot of hop particulate, hopefully this only helps provide additional character and doesn't cause any issues.

3/20/22
Showing active signs of fermentation about 24 hours after pitching. Turbulent and brightly green in appearance, there is plenty of hops moving around in this one.

3/21/22
Still bubbling with a big krausen nearly taking up all the head space. May need to remove the bung temporarily if it gets any bigger. Inspecting the recipe further after brew day I recognized that the recipe shows only a 45 minute boil, so maybe the 1.5 oz of hops were used in the past batch but not boiled for a full hour, if so this beer should be lower in bitterness than that batch.

3/22/22
Bubbling has slowed, may be in part due to the ambient temperature cooling off some. Still a large krausen though not as voluminous as yesterday.

3/24/22
Gravity at 1.017 so it should still have a little ways to go. Taste is a bit harsh and more bitter than expected but not terrible. Hoping the harshness is just due to the amount of yeast and hop particulate in the sample at this point and fades with another week or so of fermenting and some conditioning. Added the first dry hop dose directly to the carboy.

3/28/22
Gravity down to 1.012 which is the expected FG. Taste is alright but more piney and astringent than desired without the level of tropical fruit character intended. I might keg this one sooner than expected to get it off the hop material, although I do plan to add keg hops.

3/29/22
Added 1g CaCl boiled in 100mL of water and 2mL 88% lactic acid. The acid addition was inspired by this post from Scott Janish showing a possible reduction in the grassy and astringent bitterness character when pH is reduced. I'm hoping these additions improve the beer but I intentionally went fairly low on each as I can always add more during or after kegging.

3/30/22
Transferred to keg in 31F keezer with last 3 oz. dose of hops in a stainless steel tube. Taste is a bit muted and overly harsh but not terrible. Hopefully some time at cold temperatures will help it clean up and the keg hops can add some brightness but I don’t think this one is going to fully turn around.

4/2/22
Was able to serve this at a housewarming party. Probably the least popular of the 4 beers on tap and definitely a bit undercarbonated. Not bad but not a particularly good hazy. We'll see what a little more time and carbonation does for it.

4/12/22

Tasting date, tasting notes above.

Maisonette ‘22

After recently moving to a new house back on the east coast it seemed like a good idea to do a simple, easy, tried and true recipe for my first batch in a new environment and with new equipment. While most of my brewing gear from San Francisco made the trip with me I now have a yard and so am able to brew outside on a burner again for the first time in about 5 years. In addition to buying a Bayou Classic burner I also needed to adjust to other variable including a new (leaky) hose for providing water to the wort chiller, a new location for fermenting, and a new-ish water source (still WSSC water so it should be similar to what I used at my parents’ house)

In addition to a few new variables I also chose to make this specific recipe due to being super busy moving in and preparing my new house. In addition to brewing this beer today I am also building the collar for my keezer, assembling a grill, prepping for painting, and moving furniture in multiple rooms this week. Productive but exhausting work that only left room for an extract brew day with minimal interaction.

The recipe is pretty similar to a doubled volume version of the very first batch I made of this beer: dry malt extract, mosaic hops, saison yeast. One big change is that in the first version I made it used only about one third wheat DME whereas this really upped the wheat content with 100% Briess Bavarian Wheat DME. It will be interesting to see how this beer turns out with this high of a wheat content, I expect it to be fine but maybe not quite as enjoyable as the ~20% I usually aim for.

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Light gold with moderate haze. Large white head with great retention. Looks somewhere between where this beer usually falls and a classic hefeweizen, darker and hazier than ideal but within range for a farmhouse style beer and pretty appealing all around.

Smell: Fruit and spice from the yeast dominate giving an even balance of banana and bubblegum with Christmas/baking spice aromas of clove and allspice. Moderate malt presence then shows with sweet honey and breakfast cereal character. Hard to pick up the hops specifically but the mosaic character seem to be just there, blending into the fruit and spice character giving slight berry and herbal characters.

Taste: Fruity up front with banana/bubblegum/berry character that quickly blends into a mix of honey-like malt notes, leafy bitterness, and a lingering peppery and clove like spice that lasts into the finish. As it warms the Mosaic hop character comes out a little more but is still largely drowned out by the pepper/clove and banana from the yeast.

Mouthfeel: Moderately low in body and moderately high in carbonation, keeping this one very drinkable. There is a touch of astringency in the finish but it isn't off putting.

Overall: This beer is a fine grisette/saison but lacks some of the subtlety of yeast character and complexity of hop character I go for with this recipe. The hops don't show through to the normal level I look for and the yeast seem to have produced both more clove like esters and more banana/bubblegum than the more subtle "Juicy Fruit"/Chamomile/pineapple characters I aim for. Part of that may be the temperature conditions being lower than expected in the beginning then fairly high, and part of it may be due to adding the hops at warmer temperatures in the hop stand than usual. Next time I will likely go back to all grain, cut down the wheat percentage to my usual ~20% and add most or all of the post boil hops closer to 140F. 

3/6/22
Brewday:
Measured out 6.5 gallons of tap water, added half a campden  tablet, then began heating on my new bayou classic burner. Added DME and stirred as much as possible until dissolved. Added .35 oz mosaic hops at boil. Added 1 oz at flameout and began cooling. After ~10 minutes stopped cooling and added another 1 oz hops at ~180F. Let sit for 10 minutes before cooling again. Added 1 oz at 150F and stopped cooling again for ~20 minutes. Cooled to 95F and moved to 2 separate 3 gallon carboys, each with half of remaining .65 oz of hops. Pitched half a pack of Wyeast Belgian Saison in each. Plan to add Wyeast French Saison to dry it out after giving the Belgian Saison a few days to create character.

3/11/22
Pitched an inflated pack of Wyeast 3711 French Saison split into each carboy. Yeast appeared to still be active but very slow. Ambient temperatures are far below ideal for saison strains in the low-mid 60’s.

3/16/22
Still showing slow signs of fermentation. The beers were placed next to the actively fermenting oatmeal stout in hopes the heat generated by those carboys would help kick start these but while those are overflowing with yeast activity these continue to just very slowly bubble with a thin layer of krausen.

3/17/22
Hydrometer reading shows this is only down to about 1.030 so it has hardly fermented. Taste is very sweet with a surprisingly high hoppy bitterness. Moved to an upstairs bedroom at around 72F (instead of the 62-64F basement). Hopefully the warmth re-ignites the fermentation but if not I'll probably add a yeast more capable of fermenting at the cool to moderate temperatures in a few days.

3/21/22
Gravity reading shows this has fallen to 1.015 so the higher heat definitely seems to have helped, but it should have a few more points to go. Sample is very tasty with lots of juicy fruit gum and grainy sweetness finishing with a pronounced but not overly strong bitterness. I don't think this will be one of my best batches yet but has shaped up nicely over the past few days and should be ready to keg soon.

3/24/22
Bubbling very slowly, seems about ready to keg.

3/26/22
Gravity down to 1.014, doesn’t seem to be going any further. Transferred both carboys to a single 5 gallon keg. Didn’t do a great job avoiding the trub and got more yeast and hop particulate than desired, hopefully that will settle out. Set keg to 10 psi in keezer at 32F.

3/27/22
Increased PSI to 15 and keezer temp to 40F.

3/30/22
Dropped temp back down to 33F and lowered PSI slightly. Seems fairly well carbonated. Taste is fairly fruity but a bit more bitter, rough, and hazy than usual. I think the higher percentage of wheat and adding a large amount of the hops as high as 180 may be part of the issue. Hoping a couple more days at cold temps clears some things up but doesn't seem like a bad beer as is.

4/2/22
Probably the most or second most popular of the 4 beers on tap for a housewarming party. Overall it's not my favorite version of this beer but is definitely a Saison with fruity and spicy characters and a touch of the things I like most about Mosaic hops.

4/13/22
Tasting night, notes above.

Breakfast Stout '22

Full pour off the stout tap

I've brewed several versions of an oatmeal stout in the past, usually with very good results. For this batch I decided to repeat the coffee version that I made in my second attempt for a nice breakfasty stout. This recipe is extremely similar to Yooper's Oatmeal Stout and it's easy to see why that's such a popular recipe. The differences between the recipes are that I have increased the amount of oats and switched from flaked to rolled, cut the flaked barley, replaced the chocolate malt with more pale chocolate, added a small dose of Golden Naked Oats, and changed the yeast. Ok, that seems like a lot but I think the essence of the beer is probably still very similar to that recipe.

I did make a mistake when ordering for this batch and bought crystal 60 instead of 80 and this will probably lead to a little more sweetness and less dark fruit character but should still make for an enjoyable silky smooth stout. This is my first all-grain batch at my new house/with my new setup so repeating a previously enjoyable recipe should help me continue to dial-in my processes.

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Pours jet black with some mocha and garnet highlights in the light, so it's not entirely opaque. Large off-white to tan head off the stout tap. Looks like a solid stout.

Smell: Coffee up front with a blend of roast, ash, chocolate, and a light green pepper note. Hard to pick out other characters from the coffee since they are also mostly coffee/chocolate/roast but there is some toffee and graham cracker sweetness. No noticeable yeast or hop derived aromas.

Taste: While the roasty characters of chocolate/coffee/burnt marshmallow dominate the coffee is less apparent here and blends in more to the toffee/caramel sweetness and blend of earthy and subtly vegetal/fruity notes. There is a bit of a medium malt/oatmeal character in the middle before finishing with a slightly acidic and moderately bitter finish that is both coffee like and vegetal.

Mouthfeel: Fairly thick and smooth with moderately low carbonation. In a lot of ways the mouthfeel seems to be where it should be but the finish feels long and awkward rather than silky and enjoyable, possibly due to the calcium carbonate additions.

Overall: Not the best oatmeal stout I've made but it has certainly improved a lot over time. With the other half of this batch still sitting in the carboy and having not received the coffee, oak, or mineral additions I am interested to see how that compares and if what I had earlier perceived as issues were merely due to drinking it too young. If I were to brew this again I would probably switch back to the WLP002 or similarly clean English yeast, switch the Magnum hops for Target or another English variety, and maybe reduce the golden naked oats to simplify the malt bill. I also won't use the Trader Joe's Colombia Supremo coffee again as I found this batch to not be great in this beer or when drinking my morning cup of joe.

3/13/22

Weighed and milled malt in preparation for brew day.

3/14/22
Brewday:

Scheduled a vacation day to be able to recover from a busy weekend/week/month and also to get an extra chance to brew. Collected 4 gallons of tap water in two separate pots, added a quarter Campden tablet to each and began heating one for initial mash in. Missed mash in temp hitting only ~148F with the first ~3.5 gallons of 170F water but added about half a gallon of boiling water after 5 minutes to bring up to 156F. Ran off slowly after 1 hour while heating sparge water to 170F. Used the first half of sparge water on a fly/hybrid sparge that was added while first runnings were still running off. Put pot holding first ~4.5 gallons of first/second runnings at 1.052 OG onto burner and performed batch sparge with last ~2 gallons of sparge water. OG of last runnings was 1.027, giving a combined pre-boil OG of ~1.044, a little lower than expected but not terrible (depending on the boiloff this would give an efficiency in the low 70% range rather than the near 80% anticipated).

I had a slightly smaller amount of Magnum hops than anticipated (.6 oz rather than .75) but added them pre-boil to try to get the maximum extraction of alpha acids. Given the slightly lower gravity this beer appears to have and the slightly higher alpha acid content of the hops (14.8 vs 12.6) the smaller amount of hops might be better for balance.

Refractometer measured OG of 1.057 ended up being only a touch below expectations. I find the pre-boil often measures much lower than expected when measuring pre-boil and post-boil OG and so I generally don't make any adjustments based on the pre-boil gravity.

3/16/22
One carboy blew its bung and was allowed to open ferment. About 12 hours later I found the other carboy's airlock had overflowed with krausen. Clearly this is a traditional top fermenting yeast and needed more room than provided in each carboy. I cleaned, sanitized, and re-applied the airlocks and bungs to each but placed on loosely so they could easily be pushed out by the yeast if it again gets that active.

Not sure how this photo got in here but I do love Spanish Love Songs and saw them the night before brewday so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3/17/22
Fermentation activity seems to have calmed down. While one bung was dislodged overnight the krausen on both carboys has fallen back down and the bungs were re-inserted fully. Still a decent sized layer of thick yeasty krausen and plenty of bubbling in the airlock but not nearly as active as 24 hours earlier.

3/22/22
Gravity reading shows 1.013, slightly lower than expected. Taste is a little astringent and muddled, hoping it just needs some time to settle down.

3/26/22
Gravity still showing 1.013. Less yeasty taste in the sample but still a bit astringent, with some acrid ashy roast. I probably should have capped the mash with the roasted malt but hopefully it’s not too aggressive once carbonated. Added .25 oz Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend and .5 oz Trader Joe’s Colombia Supremo to one carboy along with 1.2 oz of boiled oak cubes. Should be ready to keg in a couple of days. Unlikely to get much oak character in that short amount of time but hoping it will help to round it out a bit.

3/28/22
Transferred coffee version to keg. Coffee aroma is fairly strong but coffee flavor is a little subdued. There’s still some astringency and acidity that I assume is from the dark malts in the mash and not adjusting water chemistry. To try to resolve these issues I added the coffee and oak to a mesh bag and added it to the keg. I also boiled 4g Chalk (CaCO3) and 1g Calcium Chloride in 1 cup of water and added it to the keg. Will taste from here and remove the coffee when flavor seems right and add additional water salts if needed.

4/2/22
One of the four beers on at a housewarming party. Not the most liked by most but a few people enjoyed it. The coffee does seem pretty strong at this point and the off characters seem to have subsided (or been hidden).

4/7/22
Tasting day.
Not part of the tasting but I will note that the Intertap stout faucet seems to work about as expected causing a lot of the carbonation to be released during the pour. While this give a good looking pour that resembles a nitro stout, reduces the carbonation in the beer for a good mouthfeel, and produces a big (usually too big) head, there are some downsides to the faucet. My main issue with it is that the design of it seems to cause a lot of beer to stay trapped inside leading to a large amount of splashing and dripping later on when it does finally fall out. While this isn't a huge deal it does seem to cause more lost beer and more of a mess than the other Intertap faucets that I am otherwise very happy with. Probably more of a novelty than something I'll regularly use, I did this tasting with a beer poured off the stout faucet but might change it up in the future to see how much of an effect it has.

Das Hund Maibock

I brewed this beer in January 2022 on my Dad's brewing setup. The recipe is posted here, tasting notes and cellaring notes from late in the process are below. A pretty simple recipe overall with ~60% pils and 40% vienna malt, a decent bittering charge of Magnum plus some small Hallertau Mittelfrüh additions late in the boil, fermented with a classic Munich lager yeast.

I can't seem to find any of the notes or photos from the brewday and have just one photo showing a temp reading a couple weeks later so I've included what process and tasting notes I do have below

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Bright gold in color, certainly darker than the average Helles but not to the amber of a Vienna lager. Not as clear as I would like for the style but not a "hazy" beer by any means. Large white fluffy head fades slowly and looks very appealing. Overall it is maybe more of a "keller" Maibock than a traditional one but looks appetizing none the less.

Smell: Lightly earthy/grassy/leafy hop and malt character quickly gives way to sweet/cookie/caramel aromas. There's a touch of cider-like/apple fruitiness that may just be a combination of the hops and malt or may be yeast derived.

Taste: Starts off with a smooth enjoyable grainy/pilsner malt sweet malt character before transitioning to a much heavier caramel, cider, and vegetal finish which lingers with caramel/cookie/vanilla and some earthy hop character.

Mouthfeel: The booziness is only slightly apparent with a thinness that underlies the otherwise relatively sweet and thick body. Carbonation is moderate but seems about right for the style. The lingering sweet finish seems to be more due to the flavors than any astringency or specific mouthfeel character.

Overall: For a first attempt at the style I'm not unhappy but I don't think this would be considered a very good Maibock. The caramel and cider characters are much too high though I'm not entirely sure where they're coming from as the fermentation was kept cool for at least a decent amount of time during the early fermentation of the beer (though an unexpected hot streak in early February may have played a part?) and the malt bill doesn't contain any caramel malt. It's possible there was some caramelization due to the high burner heat and extended boil time and the fermentation was done in a cold basement, not controlled temperature conditions, which could have fluctuated more than expected and allowed some of the fruity/apple characters to come out of the yeast. Overall the beer is perfectly drinkable, maybe even too much so given the ABV, but it's not exactly what I was going for. I'm not sure I will re-brew this style any time soon as I find a lower ABV pale lager is often what people want and a more robust and characterful doppelbock is often what I want. If I do make another Maibock I'll increase the late hop additions to balance the malt sweetness and look to control the fermentation temperature better.

Kegged on 3/2/22 and Munich Lager yeast saved in mason jars for future use. Tastes a lot like my helles recipe which I guess makes sense given it's a helles bock, but it’s thinner and less malty than I had expected. Will see how it changes with carbonation.

3/12/22
Set in chest freezer at 32F.

3/26/22
Connected CO2 at 10PSI

3/27/22
Increased pressure to 15PSI and temperature to 45F. Poured a sample. Tasting stronger/boozier and thinner than expected. Hopefully some more time and more pressure will help round it out but doubt it will change too much.

4/2/22
Probably the most popular of the 4 styles I have on tap for my housewarming. Multiple people just described it as an enjoyable German lager though some pointed out some of the sweetness and "vanilla wafer" type qualities. To my taste it is more on the sweet and caramel-y side than I would like but no major off flavors, will need to do a deeper tasting soon.

4/10/22
Tasting date (tasting notes above).