Sour Brown (Funky Kast #2)

I brewed a sour brown ale back on August 26th, 2012. This was intended to be a bit like the traditional flanders brown/oud bruin .  I haven't made one of these before and have only even drank the similar Flanders Red style but it seemed pretty similar to a Northern English brown ale in terms of recommended ingredients.  In this spirit I used a grain bill similar to one from an English brown with a full pound of victory malt and an oz. of willamette for bittering.  This beer will probably sit in the primary for 1-2 months, secondary for 6-12 and bottles for another 6-12.  It's a long way off from the first tasting but I'm already excited.

8/26/2012

BIAB Mashed at 148F for 60 minutes. Sparged at 160 F. OG was only 1.032. Pitched the Roeselare pack with no starter.

9/1/2012

Realized that the OG was so low due to forgetting a pound each of Caramunich (not a big deal in terms of gravity) and DME (a big difference).  I steeped the pound of caramunich in a little over a half gallon of water, then added the DME and boiled.  Cooled and added into the glass carboy.  Big blow off began within an hour.

10-7-12
Added dregs from 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze.

10-13-12
Big lacto bubbles on top of this beer now (hard to see in the picture but there's one in the top left), seems the Drie Fonteinen dregs were pretty aggressive..  I added dregs from Lindemans' Cuvee Rene. With dregs of two of the better geuzes I've tried this one should end up nice and funky.

1-12-13
The lacto bubbles have faded and now a thin brett pellicle covers the top.  Gravity is now down to 1.007.  Smell is not very pleasant (a little bit of "outhouse") but taste is more berry and sour with just a touch of sweetness.  The initial characteristics from the malt of toast have faded almost entirely.  Not sure what to do with this one, so I will probably continue the wait and see approach.

2-2-13
Gravity continues to fall slightly, now hovering between 1.005 and 1.006.  This beer is tasty now, but probably won't be safe to bottle for another 6-18 months.

3-2-13
This beer continues to improve. Still around 1.005 but more complex in its sour and funk.

5-18-13

Tastes too good to hold off bottling anymore, full batch ha 3.5 oz sugar added with 1 case worth bottled an the rest moved to a 3 gallon Carboy for secondary. Flavor is moderately fruity with solid but not overpowering complex sourness. Possibly the best sour beer I've ever tasted even flat.

6-9-13

Taste a bottle, still fairly flat. Aggressively sour with some light fruit. Not quite the complexity I would like but it will be interesting to see where the carbonation takes it. I also added the BKYeast C2 Brett to the unbottled half which has taken over, hopefully upping the fruitiness to balance the sour.

11-25-13
Bottled 2 gallons with 1 oz sugar.  The previously bottled version is aggressively acetic which detracts from the roast/fruit flavors.  I don't have high hopes for this half of the batch but letting it go any longer would probably not help.

Honey Brown First Tasting

I brewed a brown ale with a small amount (less than half a pound) of honey on May 28th and here, fully 2.5 months later, (1.5 months after bottling) I am doing a recorded tasting.

Let me start by noting that this beer does not really fit the category of brown ales, instead it is really a sweeter lighter porter.  That being said this one seems to have come out pretty disappointing but I felt I should at least record my thoughts to have as a reminder.

Aroma- Dark brown with light tan and ruby highlights.  Extremely small head fades immediately into light carbonation bubbles on the surface.  Not too impressive looking.

Smell- A lot comes off here but nothing too good.  Slight waxiness (maybe the honey?), light fruitiness (too high ferment temp?) some astringent roast and a bit of sweetness.  Not what I was going for but the nose can be deceptive sometimes.

Taste- A bit of astringency and a flat, one-dimensional sweetness with a bit of a thin alcohol bite at the finish.  This is nothing like a brown ale with no part really coming together the way I would like.

Mouthfeel- Thin with just a small carbonation prick, much thinner than I would have liked.

Drinkability- This beer is light years from what I had hoped.  I fear the one month in primary may have been a touch too long for a beer this small and a bit of autolysis has touched this. Additionally the honey seems to have only worked to thin this beer out more than I had hoped.  While this is not a terrible beer (it is drinkable without forcing it down) it is not very good and definitely not something I would pay for.  All in all I feel that this beer could have used a drop in the chocolate malt and some serious increases in lighter caramels to give it a more rounded character.

Honey Brown Ale

Currently brewing my brown ale recipe: http://hopville.com/recipe/636396/northern-english-brown-ale-recipes/turn-of-the-century

Should have a little chocolatey bitterness but mainly caramel sweetness and a bit of honey.  In many ways it is the weaker cousin of my porter, using smaller amounts of most of the same ingredients.

Will update further as this one progresses.

5-28-11

Brewing went off without too many problems.

•  The thermometer appears to be off (boiling began at 220F rather than 212)
• Some of the honey got stuck in the container and was thrown out (probably less than an ounce of honey, and this had been expected to some extent)
• I forgot the Irish Moss so this one might not clear up as others have, but otherwise went according to plan.