I haven’t been posting every brew I make to this blog for a while now. Part of that is that the blog is and always has been primarily a way for me to keep notes and since beginning to use Brewfather I have found that I can keep almost every piece of information I want about beers I make there. Another part of it is the time and effort, I often post here while waiting on various stages of the brew day or while just sitting around enjoying a beer, time that I’ve recently felt is better spent doing chores or other hobbies. The third part is that I haven’t been doing things that might be so unusual or interesting that I think they’re worth note. I do continue to be inspired by new ideas and try new processes and ingredients though so I decided to make some quick notes here about recent batches
German Pilsner: my first time decocting! This recipe largely followed the Craft Beer and Brewing Schonramer recipe with substitutions of Sugar Creek Edelweiss in place of German malt and only using Tettnang and Mittelfruh rather than 4 different hops. The beer turned out well with a fresh malty character that I’ve never been able to produce in my lagers before, but unfortunately it had some diacetyl, likely due to the temperature never getting above 50F, much less the 60+F recommended for diacetyl rests. I plan to base my future German Pilsner recipes on this one but will either add a d-rest or ALDC to avoid the very slight butter element in the future.
Sasquatch Cream Ale: an all Canadian beer using Canadian Sasquatch hops, Canadian 6-row, Canadian Krispy yeast from Escarpment labs, and flaked maize (that may not be Canadian but it is from Rahr that uses mostly Canadian grain). The beer turned out well, refreshing and light with a slight vanilla and hay component from the Sasquatch but it may be more of a blonde ale than cream ale given the amount of character from the hops and yeast.
Comet Harvest: this year I harvested my homegrown Comet hops in late August. Ending up with 23oz of wet cones I threw them all into a fairly simple medium gravity pale wort which was bittered with a half ounce of commercial Comet in case my homegrown ones were too low in AA. The resulting beer is very drinkable, definitely sitting in the Pale Ale range for bitterness and malt character and with a lightly tropical and citrusy but also somewhat herbal hop flavor.
Vienna Lager: a pretty straightforward Vienna lager I took influence for this one from two local favorites Devils Backbone Vienna Lager (CaraAmber malt) and Sapwood Cellars Crescent Hill (Barke Vienna) and added my own twist with Mandarina Bavaria hops. Unfortunately I followed the same fermentation schedule as the German Pils above and ended with the same very slight diacetyl result. Next time I will either do a d-rest or ALDC and likely increase the finishing hops to get more of the citrus character of the Mandarina.
Pye Pils: I was very happy with the first few Rye Pilsners I made in the last few years so I decided to make another one for an event where it was given away to friends and family. The beer was fairly well received but not my favorite so far, seeming more dry and bitter and missing some of the interesting malt character, possibly due to changing the grain maltsters (Best and Viking instead of Weyermann and Sugar Creek) or using Diamond Lager yeast rather than W34/70.
Alsatian Pils: Inspired by Notch’s French Disko and their description of the style in Craft Beer and Brewing I made my first French inspired lager with 6 pounds of Pils, 2 pounds of Sugar Creek purple Peruvian corn, and lots of strisselspalt hops. Similar to the recent rye pils it seemed a little drier and more bitter/less malty than I was aiming for but was still a clean and enjoyable drinker.
I’ve brewed other beers since my last post but these were mostly variations of lagers and NEIPAs I’ve made in the past, all turned out well but with nothing so exceptional I would remake them exactly the same again.
