American IPA

I brewed my first straight forward, traditional IPA this past weekend.  While I put a little bit of my own twist on it by using some Golden Naked Oats and untraditional flavoring/aroma hops of Warrior and Nugget (and planning to dryhop with some German Opal) the recipe was one of the most "to style" that I have made. I had some trouble keeping the mini mash part at a low temp. It actually was around 146-148 for a while but slowly raised to 160 after adding some heat, we'll see what that does to the body. The OG was measured at 1.068 and had a refreshingly bitter finish before fermentation. This should end up a nice dry hoppy IPA.

Updates:

12/30/12

Finally bottled with 4 oz. of sugar

1/5/13

Cracked the first one of these open.  Certainly not as bitter as I had expected, more balanced with sweetness but it seems to be a nice pale ale at this point.

Spiced Belgian Tasting

Haven't done a tasting in a while and just popped open my strong/spiced Belgian ale.

A- Cloudy amber with a large head that fades slowly leaving no lacing.  Pretty bubbles in the tan head.

S- Spice, clove and cardamom, lead the way with some caramel, prune and fig notes.

T- Like the nose the spice dominates with clove dominating but a mild toasty flavor and some fig/cherry fruit also in the mix. Finishes long and dry with a bit of tang and hops.

M- Fairly thin, accentuated by the fairly high carbonation.  The carbonation gives it a bit of a bite on the dry finish.

O- A quite pleasant beer with the Rochefort yeast giving strong spice notes that are even more accentuated by the additions.  The wine has faded entirely giving no noticeable contribution.  This one wasn't what I was going for with the beer and the carbonation could be dialed back some, but still very enjoyable.  The alcohol also really sneaks up on you in this one. Very strong but no alcohol presence until you feel it all over.

BKYeast Brett Isolate (Funky Kast #3)

The very cool Dmitri from BKYeast recently had a post about giving away 4 strains of Brettanomyces to those who ask (and pay for shipping). While I thought it was a longshot I decided to send an email inquiring about C2, one of the 3 Brett strains he isolated from Cantillon Iris.  I was happy to hear back that I am one of the 15 people he will be shipping his samples of C2.  I'm super excited for this chance to experiment with such an original yeast (and one from a brewery I very much like and recently visited).  I'm already thinking of a few recipes that have potential to use this yeast as the sole fermenter.  Depending on what characteristics I get out of the yeast I will also probably use it in the secondary or at bottling with saisons, dubbels or old ales.

I hope to have a chance of doing some yeast ranching of my own within the next few months, maybe even starting with the bottle of Cantillon I brought back from the brewery.  It's awesome the number of homebrewers who are already doing it and are giving these options to us... Thanks BKYeast!

Updates:
11-2-12
Made a 1.5 L starter for this, plan to step it up in about 48 hours

11-4-12
Stepped up the starter to nearly 1 gallon. The extra starter wort (in excess of the gallon) was placed outside during the Redskins game and is now sitting in an open (but sanitized) juice container. We'll see if anything comes of that.

11-11-12
Brewed up the best bitter/saison hybrid for this beer yesterday, and added the homemade candi sugar today.  OG of 1.049.

11-23-12
Took a gravity reading and tasting.  Gravity down to 1.012, the flavor is interesting.  Up front there is a strawberry and damp wood sweet sensation that is followed by a horsey, funky, sour flavor mixed with mild bitterness.  The flavor is far from ideal but hopefully it will blend a little better over time and I am wondering whether oak or fruit may play up the nice parts of the front while balancing the strange flavors on the tail end.

1/12/13
Gravity seems stable at 1.010. Flavor has certainly melded as the bitterness faded revealing mainly a woody, lightly fruity and moderately sour beer. This could definitely be a nice base for a fruit beer, I'm not quite sure which type of fruit would go best yet though.  I'm thinking about bottling some and taking a wait and see approach with the rest.

2/2/13
Bottling Day!
Racked from under the pellicle and onto 2.6 oz. of sugar.  I went for the low end of carbonation to avoid bottle bombs if the Brett eats a little bit beyond the 1.010 gravity that it's been at.  1 case (about half the batch) were bottled while the other half was simply moved to secondary, where it might end up receiving some fruit or other addition.  It tastes pretty good: lightly sour, lightly fruity and a bit of a damp woody character.  I look forward to reviewing it once it is finished carbonating.

3-31-13
Added 2 pounds of blackberries directly to carboy. Planning to bottle in 2 or 3 weeks though it could probably go longer on the fruit with the Brett eating away at it

5-17-13

Finally bottled the blackberry half. Side by side tasting to come in a month or so.  As of now the blackberry is subtle but balancing and pleasant.

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.

Banana Milk Stout

Brewed a banana milk stout beer beer on 10-13-12.  The beer is a pretty typical stout in terms of grain and I plan to add a pretty typical amount of lactose for a milk stout. Where this beer gets unusual is the use of weihenstaphen wheat yeast and the planned addition of banana's in secondary to give this a bright estery banana flavor to balance the chocolate and coffee of the roast malts.

Updates
11-5-2012
I added approximately 5 lbs. of bananas to this yesterday. Not at home but I'm told this caused a large fermentation which blew off the airlock and put banana pieces all over the place. I'll have to assess the damage and see if this batch can still be salvaged.

11-11-2012
Despite the mess the beer doesn't appear affected and has a nice chocolate covered banana aroma. I moved it to secondary to hopefully clear and finish up eating any banana sugars.  The gravity was down to 1.009 and the taste was somewhat bland and alcoholic, not at all like the smell.  Added 12 oz. of lactose, hopefully a few days and the milk sugar will help this one balance out.

11-23-2012
Beer was looking a little funny but at a gravity now of 1.012 (after the lactose addition) it doesn't appear to be fermenting so I bottled.  Added 2 oz. sugar and 2 oz. lactose.  The beer had a nice chocolate banana flavor and aroma up front but the finish seems highly vegetal (probably due to either unripe bananas or too much time on them).  I'm hoping this flavor fades but I'm not overly optimistic...

Euro Trip 2012

Let me start by stating that I had never been to Europe.  Let me then follow that up with the statement that I love many European beers.  In planning our trip to Europe my girlfriend's number one request was that we visit a country she has never been to (she's been to Europe a lot) and my only request was that we got to experience some great beer.  The result: We spent 4 days in Belgium with visits to Cantillon in Brussels and De Halve Maan in Bruges. Our original itinerary also included Koln (home of Kolsch) and Dusseldorf (home of Dusseldorf Alt) but due to time and cost restraints we cut Germany entirely (it was still a bit of a whirlwind).

The itinerary was:
-London
-Paris
-Amsterdam
-Bruges
-Ghent
-Brussels
-London

Now that I'm back I understand that there is no way I can do all the beers and all the experiences I had in Europe justice with a blog post.  That said, I'm going to do my best to keep it concise and record what I can.

I'll start with brewery tours:

Heineken Experience in Amsterdam, flashy and modern

While the Heineken Experience isn't as much of a brewery per se, it is the site where their main brewery once stood and, combined with De Halve Maan in Bruges, Belgium and Cantillon in Brussels, Belgium the 3 gave a very interesting view into the world of beer.  The Heineken Experience was a fun (but pricey) display of Heineken's history and ability to market itself. Much of the attractions inside are either wholly unrelated to beer (digital displays or soccer uniforms) or are high tech displays of the brewing process (films about the first 3 generations of Heineken or the We-Brew-You 4d ride.  The experience shows a world wide macro beer producer doing what it does best: putting forth a consistent and well advertised product.

A poster at De Halve Maan (formerly Henri Maes) brewery in Bruges,.

The second brewery we visited was De Halve Maan in Bruges, the only remaining brewery in a city that had 8 as recent as 50 years ago.  How has De Halve Maan managed to stay around?  A mix of modernization while holding some of their history and uniqueness.  De Halve Maan showed that the beers they offered have changed over time and that where once they malted their own barley (seeing the malting room and kiln were great parts of the tour) they now have it malted by a huge malting company.  While continuing to make ales with belgian yeast character, they have adopted their beers over time, to the point where their top seller currently is a Belgian pale ale using hops from the Czech Republic.

Old bottling line at Cantillon Brewery, Brussels

The third brewery we visited was the biggest blast from the past.  Built in 1900 Cantillon brewery still uses the equipment and practices utilized over a century ago.  Only one beer is brewed: a lambic with 65% barley, 35% barley, a lot of 3 year old aged hops and water.  This beer is then aged in oak barrels (we tried some of the 20 month old, still version straight from the barrel) and is either blended with 1, 2 and 3 year old versions (Geuze) or the 2 year old version is mixed with fruit (cherries for kriek, raspberries for rose gambrinus, apricots for fou foune). Cantillon is the only lambic producer remaining in the city of Brussels and they remain profitable by sticking to this style.

The three breweries were very different yet each had consistently stuck to their image of what beer should be and how it should be made with Heineken always using the most modern microbiology and marketing techniques, Cantillon the most classic processes and De Halve Maan moving forwards while holding on to their geographical style and past.

While the breweries were great, I made it a point to drink at least 1 beer every day of the trip and have one local beer from every region visited.  This taught me two valuable things:
1. Real Ales (especially very sessionable bitters) are very common, tasty but also expensive.  These 3-4% ABV beers typically cost around 5 GBP (about $8).
2.  Trappist (and Trappist style and lambic) beers in Belgium are extremely common (most restaurants seemed to offer a handful of each of these styles) and are extremely cheap.  It is about the same cost for Rochefort, Westmalle, Chimay, Duvel and Cantillon in beer shops and bars as it is for Heineken, Hoegaarden and Stella Artois!  Suffice it to say I LOVED Belgium and the problem was much more often too many beers to choose from than not enough.  I had my fill of a number of Geuzes.  In that arena Cantillon came in second to Drie Fonteinen in my book with a slight lead over Boon and Tilquin and way better than Oud Beersel. As for Trappists I liked Chimay more than I remembered but also enjoyed Rochefort a lot (wasn't a huge fan of La Trappe or Westmalle) and brought a Westy 12 and Achel home so I can try the only two trappists I'm yet to have experienced.

While I could write books and books about my trip, European beer or even just Belgian beer I think that's more than enough for one blog post.

Posting from Europe

Three days into our Europe trip and I've managed to have beer every day. One thing I wanted to note was the prevalence of "real ales" (I the the name, all top fermented beers are real ales in my mind, but I digress) these cask conditioned hand pulled session beers are quite tasty and unlike what I came to expect of esb's in the us with a much more refreshing malt balance. Tonight I am drinking a kronenbourg in Paris after a long walking tour of the beautiful city. Looking forward to more exploring and more beers.

Brett Saison (Funky Kast #1)

I brewed a Wheat Saison with Brett on 8-4-2012.  The recipe was influenced somewhat by the great brett'd saison's I've had recently including Sofie by Goose Island and some of the beers from Stillwater Artisinal Ales.  A very simple recipe, I hope to let the brett derived flavors shine through.  I also plan to move half the batch into secondary with asian pears harvested from my girlfriend's yard and some oak cubes.

Goose Island may have sold out to AB InBev but they still make at least one interesting and delicious brew.

8-26-12 Update
Took a sample today, the beer is already down to an astounding 1.006. The small sample tasted good, with a light hoppy and fruity aroma and taste with surprisingly high sweetness for such a low gravity.  I plan to bottle/rack to secondary within a few weeks if the gravity is stable.

10-7-12 Update
Bottled 30 bottles of this batch today, moved the rest of the batch into my 3 gallon better bottle with Asian pears and .5 oz. Hungarian oak.

4-1-13 Update
Double tasting with both the straight and oak/Asian pear versions.

7-11-14

Nearly two years since brewing and more than a year after my initial tasting I just opened another bottle of this one. Bottle is highly carbonated, but not overly so, especially given the style. Appearance is a pretty red with a fast fading, lace leaving head. Smell is pear, apricot, peach, vanilla, wheat berry. Taste is wheat and stone fruit with a touch of light phenol. Finishes sweet and fruity with a moderate body. Overall this beer seems remarkably unchanged and, if I didn't know better, I may have guessed this was the oak and fruit version, the pairing was very well matche for the base. Not my favorite beer and the Brett really never showed through, but something different and enjoyable enough on a warm summer night.

Lime hefeweizen Tasting #1

I brewed up an all grain hefeweizen a while back. Though I used a couple types of wheat it had a fairly simple, classic bill. I bottled half of it straight and it's a drinkable, though very mild, hefe without any thrills. The second half however I added roughly half a container (about .75 quarts) of Simply Lime limeade to.

Appearance: With all the wheat this beer pours with a big head and (purposely) cloudy.
Smell: The nose is yeasty and doughy with just a little hint of citrus and banana.
Taste: The flavor is fairly tart with the lime the dominant flavor and the other flavors backing it up.
Overall: This is somewhere in the middle of those I've made in terms of quality, with no major flaws and a refreshing quality, but without the hefe characteristics or malt-to-fruit balance I would have liked. I could see this going over well with ladies and those who are less into beer and it's certainly quaffable.

Experimentation

I like to experiment with my brewing. Many brewers don't understand the desire to try new styles, split batches, add fruit, spices, oak, smoke or whatever else to beers. Personally I would be bored to death to follow someone else's recipe and get someone else's results. There are two great rewards to experimentation.

1. Experience- when I experiment I can really see how beer works, what I like, and where to go in future batches.
2. Variety- I don't want to just make a pale ale that's as good as one from the store I want to make beers that are better and different from those I can buy.

Experimentation isn't just something that keeps me brewing beers, it keeps me drinking them. While many beer drinkers will primarily stick to a few key brands I usually go for a new one to try when possible. When I do find beers I like I go back to them on occasion (like how I plan to rebrew my hoppy black saison soon) but they also inspire me to keep experimenting both with the commercial beers I purchase and the homebrews I make. While I hope to brew some more "to style" beers in the future I will be sure to experiment within the limited range of those styles. After all some brewers have made a living off of experimenting.