#36 - 10° Quad Recipe and Tasting

The 10° Quad is the 3rd and final in my Belgian Trappist series that began with brewing the 6° Dubbel, followed by the 8° Tripel.  In addition to these 3 beers, two side projects, a Golden Strong with Sage and Christmas Cookie spiced Quad/Dubbel blend, also came out of this excursion to the Trappist monastery styles of brewing.  The Quad is intended to be the king of the 3, the most malt, the most sugar additions, the most time to ferment; harder, better, faster, stronger.  This is far from my first attempt at a quad with the first two being interesting but off the mark.  The hope for this beer is that the use of commercial candi syrup, rather than homemade, and tighter control on yeast levels and fermentation temperatures, will bring this to where I want.

4/7/2014
Still have not bottled this beer and unfortunately it seems to have oxidized.  Taste has some nice rum/molasses character of the candi syrup and a bit of fruitiness but these are muted by the flat, oxidized flavor.  I had planned to bottle long before now but a number of issues have made me reschedule and this one now seems doomed.  Perhaps this will go down as a lesson that the high number of beers I brewed in the early months of this year were beyond my capacity to manage and I need to stick to one or two beers over a similar time span, not 4 brew days with multiple variations leading to 7 beers.

4/13/14

Bottled with 2 oz table sugar. Still seems a bit oxidized and less strong than expected but has some nice dark fruit flavors as well.

5/7/14

Tasting:

Appearance- very deep, opaque brown, just a shade above black. Huge, fluffy, light tan head that's well supported by a huge carbonation rising thought the beer.

Smell- dark malt, caramel, toffee and dark pit fruit aromas are somewhat muted by a stale character I take to be oxidation. Some definite alcohol in the mix as it warms.

Taste- dark fruit, molasses, rum, raisin, clove and warming, slightly hot, alcohol.  As it warms there is a bit of that sherry-like oxidized note but the stale, cardboard flavor doesn't dominate as strongly as I have noticed in the past. There is some moderate bitterness in the finish that knocks away the sweetness and leaves a lingering alcohol and fruit sensation.

Mouthfeel- hugely carbonated but moderately light in body, this is pretty spot on for a belgian style giving a creamy, smooth drinking, effect.

Overall- this feels like a beer that could have been very good, lots of fruity, spicy, sugary flavors from malt and yeast and a great body and carbonation level. Unfortunately the early oxidation of this beer keeps it from being a terrific example. Yet another data point in my quest for a great homebrewed Belgian Quad, but maybe the most informative data point thus far.

5-28-14

Update: hugely carbonated was right, opened the laundry room to find shards of glass and dark sticky beer everywhere. At least two (edit, it was 6!) of these have exploded so far. The culprit is likely adding too much sugar as they don't give an off smell (they actually smell great) and were certainly given plenty of time to finish initial fermentation.  Still I only used 2 oz in nearly 4 gallons of beer, which should have given a volume well under 2.5, which the bottles should be able to hold. Time to figure out how to trash the rest; not worth having a bad and dangerous beer sitting around.

#38 - American Rye

With the warm weather finally setting in here in the Mid-Atlantic I've turned my mind towards warm weather, quaffable beers and this low alcohol, hoppy, American style beer using both wheat and rye seems as summery as I'm going to get.  The goal here is to have a highly hop flavored, but only lightly bitter, light beer that can quench my thirst through the next few months as the area turns from a beautiful, cherry blossom filled oasis to an unbearably hot and humid swamp.

While the recipe has been changed a number of times some of the main ideas were to use wheat and rye and to retry Citra after less than stellar results a few years back.  The final iteration also uses the experimental HBC342 hop varietal and a little Palisade. Rubbing and smelling each hop separately is an eye opening experience, especially considering their somewhat similar descriptors.  HBC342 has a strong damp, decaying leaves, earthy, woody, canteloupe, black pepper and black currant smell that reminds me of Styrian Goldings more than any American hops.  Citra has a strong fruit salad smell with mango being the most obvious component with pineapple, guava, papaya, grapefruit and aggressive, bitter citrus peel all in the mix as well.  Palisade, as displayed in my Belgian American Pale Ale, is floral and perfumey with light apple, pear and cedar notes in the rubbed smell.  Some of the reports I have read of HBC342 have stated that the aroma doesn't come through very strongly, also a common complaint with Palisade, which might make them more backing parts to the Citra.

The brewday went long due to having to run errands in the middle, single infusion mash began at 150 and lasted nearly 2 hours falling to 144 before mashing out at 168 and batch sparging at 175.  Hour long boil was mostly quiet since I only added all the hops at the same time that I cut the temperature.  With this many hops and the amount of alpha acids pulled during the post boil not super accurate it should be interesting to see just how bitter (or not) this one turns out.  OG is just 1.040...once again well below my already low projections.  (Note: reviewing the recipe again I see this isn't as far below as I had originally thought but is still only about 60%).  In this case I'm almost certain it is due to the milling since all the grains, and the rye and malted wheat especially, seemed to have a large number of unthreshed pieces.  This might be the batch that finally prompts me to buy a mill.

5/2/14

Popped one open to test. Very flat and cloudy with a heavy citrus and moderate bitterness but not a lot of hop flavor on the tongue. Hopefully the carbonation kicks in and brings this beer more together.  As it currently stands, it looks and tastes quite a bit like grapefruit juice.

6/9/14
Tasting notes.  Still very cloudy with high drinkability but nothing too exciting in the flavor and something seems a touch off other than just the appearance.

#19b - Sour Red Tasting

I brewed this sour brown beer (probably actually closer to a Flanders red style-wise) in the summer of 2012 and, well, wow time flies when you're brewing beers. This version received additional Brett compared to the straight version of 19 and was also bulk aged a bit longer.

Appearance- medium brown/garnet in color with no trace of a head and a few carbonation bubbles coming up. Extremely clear after all this time.

Smell- chocolate, raspberry and vinegar predominate. The chocolate malty character comes through surprisingly strong but the acetic acids slight sting dominates.

Taste/Mouthfeel- on the tongue this one feels tingly, and tastes fairly fruity (blackberry, raspberry) with a surprisingly high malt characteristic that encompasses toast and shortbread. Finish is fairly dry with a sharp back of the mouth burn followed by lingering vinegar and, again, toasted bread.

Overall- this beer is very interesting. At times I find it to be way too sour, but tonight I felt the fruit and malt characters shined and kept it enjoyable. Definitely a beer only sour lovers could get into, and even then the high acetic levels might put some of them off. Not nearly as bright, funky or complex as my favorite sours but interesting nonetheless.

The BKYeast C2 added to this half might be partially responsible for the more balanced beer compared to my other tastings of #19 as the Brett's fruit flavors help to balance the extreme tartness. It would be interesting to do a side by side taste test but with only a handful of bottles of each left, and the extremely sour character they each display, that might not be a great idea.

#34b - Sage Honey Golden Strong Ale Tasting

I've been really enjoying this modified version of my #34 - Tripel which used a sage tincture and an extra 12 oz. of honey on 2.5 gallons of beer.  A beautiful day in Arlington in the middle of a brew session seems like a nice time to do an official tasting.

A- Medium copper, hazy, with a very nice bright white 1 finger head of small bubbles that's sustained by constant, but not overly strong, carbonation bubbles.

S- Floral, herbal, grainy, honey sweet, fruity, yeasty.  Golden grahams cereal, fresh bread, pizza (from both the herbal sage and the yeastyness), bubble gum.  The sage and honey come on stronger as it warms, giving off more of the sweet, savory, herbal and floral characteristics.

T- Again, a melange of primarily sweet flavors with some savory notes sprinkled in.  Up front it is crisp and fruity with honey and sage showing in the middle and a finish that is medium dry, off-sweet, slightly bitter and moderately warming from the high alcohol.  The sage seems a bit more noticeable with every sip, though always in a refreshing and not overpowering way.

M- Carbonation is right where I would like, medium/medium-high, with a fairly dry body despite the high gravity and moderately sweet taste.

O- Of all the Belgians I recently brewed this may turn out to be the best.  The alcohol is warming but only just so.  While far off from a true Duvel style Belgian Golden Strong Ale it certainly has a similar ability to sneak in the alcohol.  The honey and sage play together very nicely with the underlying beer and I would have to say that the sage tincture was very well done.  This seems like a great beer for a beautiful, warm, spring day like today.

#37 - Alsatian Identity Saison

Due to some late shipping and multiple reworkings of plans during my 3 Trappist series of brews, I found myself in possession of 10 pounds of milled Belgian pilsner which needed to be used ASAP.  Having a wide range of hops on hand and a few yeast strains left the door fairly wide open but in the end I decided to go for one of my favorite styles with a classic saison. I chose to primarily use hops grown in Alsace, especially the new Aramis variety, with a malt bill that uses the Belgian pils, some leftovers in Golden Naked Oats and Special B (barely over an ounce) and a pound of flaked rye I picked up on a whim. Unlike many of my Saisons I decided to keep to European continental hops: Alsatian Aramis and Strisselspalt from Alsace, France and Opal from nearby Germany. I am hoping this will give a very classic hop profile and I did not add any spices (though part of the batch may receive a tincture dosing or secondary with Brett depending on how it progresses). For the yeast, I used the blend from my American Saison which started with just Wyeast Belgian Saison but was helped along with the French Saison strain.  It will be interesting to see how this house saison blend plays out, but both strains give consistently great brews and I don't see any reason this one should be any different.

3/24/2014
Bottled with 2 oz. of sugar.  Got distracted dealing with a number of issues and completely forgot to split off any of the batch with spices/Brettanomyces.  Surprisingly subtle flavor at bottling, hopefully carbonation makes it pop a little more.


3/31/2014
Accidentally opened one of these last night.  While the carbonation isn't there yet I think its safe to call it a thorough disappointment.  The beer seems under attenuated leading to a strange syrupy sweetness that's only not cloying due to a moderate bitterness.  There also doesn't seem to be any characters of the saison yeast, leaving this one a bland, vaguely sweet mess. I forgot to add the white pepper to this one as well which may have helped balance the sweet and fruity notes.  Hopefully some carbonation will give it a little more life but I don't have high hopes and might give up on my yeast blend.

4/27/2014

Time has certainly brought the carbonation on this one to a very nice high level.  The beer is alright but a bit too banana and ginger flavored. The off flavors likely come fom under pitching and not thoroughly washing my yeast from my ginger saison. I don't think the saison yeast blend itself is a failure but the execution was flawed. Will post a more complete tasting when possible.

White Dragons Tasting

Here Be Dragons! Was just the 7th batch of beer I brewed. A mix of a Winter Warmer/ Strong Ale and Scotch Ale the beer was split several ways at bottling. Today I found one of these, thought to be fully depleted brews, an decided to give it a try. Remembering it as having noticeable off flavors and being over carbonated even by my early, extract brewing standards, I didn't expect much.

A - as expected this one shot out of the bottle with some force giving a hazy chestnut brown beer with a yeasty, tan head.

S- this actually smells like a Scotch ale should: toffee, wood, lots of sweet bready malt and an ester/phenol profile I only detect in beers made with Scottish style yeast.

T- I don't pick up anything definitively orange or coriander (the spices added to the WD version). Taste is similar to nose, sweet, bready, estery. Finishes in an unpleasant jumble of phenols, dryness and sweet esters.  Likely fermented much too warm for this yeast. Starting to show some signs of age and oxidation but not overly so.

M- way over carbonated which seems to lead to the dryness in the finish despite relatively high body.

O- this beer is probably at least as good today as it was 2 years ago when first tasted. It's not a great beer by any means but my original tasting seemed to nail the defects and understand the parts which did work. I've not had luck with the Scottish ale blend but am wondering whether I just don't like the style, fermented too high or a combination of the two. I would like to try brewing a similar malty Strong Ale with a more neutral yeast as the malt body is very pleasant.

#35 - 6° Dubbel

This is the first of a series of the beers (and second of the posts) in the same theme of Belgian Trappist styles.  The first beer brewed in the series was this  6° Dubbel with an 8° Tripel and 10° Quad coming later.  I designed each of these recipes attempting to be fairly to-style.

In addition to the 3 to-style recipes I also plan to make a 7° spiced dark ale mimicking speculoos cookies, a blend of the Dubbel and Quad with a spice tincture made from ginger, cardamom, clove, nutmeg, white pepper, black pepper and cinnamon, and a 9° Golden Strong by adding honey and sage to the Tripel.

This Dubbel is designed to showcase the complex raisin and caramel flavors from Special B malt, Candi Syrup Inc.'s D-90 and D-180 and the estery and phenolic flavors from Wyeast 3787.

My first tasting gave a less than desirable perception of clean and bitter.  When tasting again at racking to secondary the yeast and sugar elements came through much more clearly giving the impression that this will be a nice Belgian ale that ranks up there with commercial examples of the style.

Racked to secondary after 3 weeks of vigorous fermentation.  Fairly dark but still within style guidelines.

3 tinctures: Sage (for the Golden Strong), cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, white pepper, cardamom ginger (for the Speculoos influenced dubbel/quad blend) and a separate ginger/cardamom/clove one (that might be used to balance the heavy levels of nutmeg an cinnamon or might find use elsewhere).  The sage is extremely pleasant, herbal and sweet with the cinnamon slightly dominating its tincture and giving a "fireball" impression, and the third has a very different sort of sweet and hot ginger character that I go back and forth on my opinion of.

#34 - 8° Tripel

Continuing my themed set of trappist style ales I brewed an 8° Tripel. Like the 6° Dubbel (brewed prior to the tripel but aging longer, post to come) this beer uses primarily Belgian Pilsner and a little Munich malt with some sugar additions, Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity yeast and a simple continental European hop bill featuring Styrian Goldings and Hallertau (and in the Tripel's case a little Strisselspalt as well).  The Tripel however should turn out quite different with less dark malts, a much higher hop bitterness, flavor and aroma and the sugar additions being white sugar and honey rather than the complex dark candi syrups leading to hop/yeast balance rather than malt/sugar/yeast.  As the name suggests this beer will also start with a slightly higher gravity (1.080) for an added alcohol oomph.

Trying to work in the same kitchen that my girlfriend was using to make bread led to some issues with tight space and a few spills.  In the end I lost about half a pound of the pilsner malt trying to add it to the mash tun and lost about half an ounce of hersbrucker hops when trying to vacuum seal.  I made up for the pilsner malt with more white sugar.  Pitched 12 oz. of slurry harvested from my Belgian Session IPA on December 26th (about a 50% over-pitch according to Mr. Malty).

In addition to wanting to brew to-style Trappist beers in each of the 3 major varieties (dubbel, tripel, quad) there was an additional goal to this themed series to experiment with tinctures and blending.  Unlike the Dubbel which will be blended with the Quad to create my 7° beer, this beer will have additional sugars (largely honey) added to bump up the equivalent starting gravity just 1 Belgian degree (up to the equivalent of a 1.090 OG) to create a Belgian Golden Strong ale.  Similar to the 7° beer which will be spiced with a number of warming festive spices this beer will have a simpler tincture of sage added to lend some floral, sweet and savory characteristics.

1/28/14
Extremely vigorous fermentation led to me replacing the airlock with a blow off tube.

2/13/14

Gravity down all the way to 1.006 after getting to 1.008 at moving to secondary.  Bottled just under 2 gallons with 1.5 oz of sugar. (as brew #34 despite the Dubbel actually having been brewed before it).  ~2.5 gallons were mixed with 12 oz. of honey for what will be the Sage Golden Strong.  Taste is surprisingly high in bitterness with some noticeable alcohol, fruity yeast derived flavors and a touch of honey like sweetness.

3/1/14

Bottled the Golden Strong with most of the sage tincture (roughly 1/2 cup worth of extract from 2/3 cup vodka, 1/4 cup sage mixture).  Taste is sweet and estery up front but dry and bitter in the finish with the sage giving a citrusy, herbal character that I might have liked to see even more of.

4/12/14

Sage version tasting notes.  Very tasty, noticeable but not overpowering sage presence.

5/17/14

Straight Tripel tasting (with side by side notes of Sage Golden Strong). Also a good beer, though not as true to style as I was hoping.

#33 and #33B - Belgian Session IPA Double Tasting

I brewed this Belgian Session IPA/Belgian-American Pale Ale just over 6 weeks ago.  Tasting it during the time since, I have found it to be one of the best beers I have made to this point.  At a recent brewclub meeting it received rave reviews from all who tasted it including Michael Tonsmeire.  Unfortunately, it was so popular that it was gone by the time Charlie Papazian unexpectedly showed up to the meeting.  Getting such positive feedback felt great and made me want to review the half of the batch which had a green tea tincture added.  Today I'm doing a side-by-side tasting of each.

#33 - Straight

A- Slightly hazy coppery orange with a one finger bright white head.  Pretty perfect looking for a dry hopped beer in my opinion.

S- Hops dominate with tropical fruit (pineapple, mango) and light citrus (tangerine).  There is also a light fruity cherry character in the mix which appears to be from the Westmalle yeast strain.

T- Like the nose hops again dominates with the yeast seemingly lending a hand as pineapple, mango, peach and nectarine lead the way before a moderately bitter, lightly tannic, finish.

M- Relatively light but still mouthfeeling and moderately carbonated.  Like the color I would say this is exactly where I wanted it.

O- A very pleasant beer that nicely showcases Mosaic hops (most members at the homebrew meeting were able to pick this out without being told any other details).  Still, there are enough other elements to keep this complex and the low starting and finishing gravities and moderate bitterness makes this very drinkable and enjoyable.

#33B - Green Tea Version

A- Identical to the straight version.

S- This version comes off less fruity with the green tea coming into the mix as a lemon-tea character that seems to round out the other flavors nicely.

T- Like the nose, the flavors seem rounded off a bit with the tea.  Up front the flavor is again tropical fruit with light citrus, though not as pronounced as in the other version.  In the finish the tea character seems to round out the bitterness so that the finish is smoother.  The tea doesn't seem to dominate and I wonder whether someone who didn't know about it would guess it, but with the knowledge that it is there, and the immediate comparison to the straight version, it shines through.

M- Again, fairly dry but right where I would like it.

O-  Having only had one bottle of the tea version and not noticing the tea strongly at that time, this tasting really surprised me.  The tea is far from dominating, but shows through just enough to affect all the flavors around it.  While I might have liked a more assertive character from it, the experimental half came out nicely without being identical, a success by any measure.  In the end, I arrived at 2 similar, but equally good, beers.

7/7/14
Forgot to post the following blog entry on the results of this beer in a competition so I'm just adding it here.

The DC Homebrewers' (my local homebrew club) Cherry Blossom festival was the first brewing competition I have entered.  Being a BJCP sponsored event this competition holds a little weight and had almost 240 entries.  In addition to entering my Belgian Session IPA (As an American Pale Ale) I also helped steward the event.  In this post I have decided to focus on my competition results and compare them side by side with my own personal tasting to see how strongly I agree or disagree with the judges opinions.

Aroma
Judge 1- Floral hops dominate the nose. Faint citrusy notes, crowded a bit by estery sweetness, faintly perfume-y. 7/12
Judge 2- Nice pine-laden hop aroma, a bit solventy, otherwise very clean. Little if any malt aroma. 9/12

Appearance
Judge 1- Dense, fomy head. Brilliant clarity, absolutely no haze. Deep red-gold color. 3/3
Judge 2- Pale amber color, good clarity, just off white head, creamy and with good retention 3/3

Flavor
Judge 1- Low-to-moderate floral and citrus hop flavor, competing with significant perfume ester flavors. No perceptible malt flavor underneath.  Dry finish with persistent hop bitterness. Faint cardboard flavor - oxidized? 9/20
Judge 2- Minimal malt flavor or body, but a good hop flavor from the start. Bitterness is subtle, and flavor is a bit one-dimensional with the fairly simple hop flavor going from start to finish. 11/20

Mouthfeel
Judge 1- medium light body, medium carbonation. Slight astringency, likely from hops.  Very drinkable, although the body could be fuller to support hops.
Judge 2- Slightly thin on the body, medium carbonation.  No astringency or warming, but - bit lifeless due to thin body. 3/5

Overal Impression
Judge 1- A beautiful looking beer, but the estery characteristics and slight body prevent the full expression of the hops.  Try fermenting at a lower temperature within the bounds of the yeast temperature recommended range. 6/10
Judge 2- A nice hop flavor beer, but lacks the malt and nuance of the style.  Boost body with specialty grain additions, or try a higher starting gravity. 6/10

Total
Judge 1- 28/50
Judge 2- 32/50

My take:
Both judges seemed to be pretty similar here and both hit the nail on the head: this beer is too thin and too estery to be a true American Pale Ale.  The Belgian yeast (and the Palisades hops) both played into giving this beer a stronger estery and perfumey character than one expects in this style and the yeast definitely dried it out to a point where the caramel malt couldn't shine and instead the hops and yeast derived characteristics took center stage.  In retrospect I wonder whether this beer would have fared better in the Belgian Specialty Ale category though I fear it would have been deemed too clean there.  In the end both judges gave very accurate descriptions of the beer and some accurate feedback (given that neither knew the true reason for the dryness/fruitiness was the strain of yeast chosen).

If I were to enter another BJCP style competition I would likely only do so with a beer brewed intentionally to style, something that I have a hard time doing.  That said, I think it was a good event and my beer scored a pretty average score overall, respectable for my first time, especially given that the beer was far out of style.

#32 - Best Bitter Recipe and Tasting

This is a replacement post for one that disappeared while I was creating it and will probably be a little short on detail.

I brewed this Special/Best/Premium Bitter in the Fall when my desires turned to beers which were fairly light in alcohol but had both moderate malt and hop characteristics, as displayed by the previous brewed Altbier.

The base of this beer was primarily English Pale Malt.  I had originally planned to use Maris Otter but they were almost out at the LHBS so I augmented with equal parts Golden Promise and a non-specified Maltster's British Pale Ale malt.  Part of this recipe design came from tasting a wort sample made with Victory malt and the craving for a traditional pint of bitter as I experienced in London, leading me to use .5 lbs of crystal 60 malt.  Hops were entirely East Kent Goldings to have a very traditional flare and Bedford British yeast was used after being unable to find the intended strain and reading rave reviews on The Perfect Pint.  Below is a tasting now more than 3 months after bottling.

A- Slightly hazy copper.  Pours with a thick off-white head that recedes to a half finger layer and leaves good lacing.  It certainly looks the part of a bitter.

S- Malts predominate on the nose giving toffee, cookie and fresh bread with the EKG aroma having fallen to just a touch of woodiness if you really search for it.  Hop aroma was certainly better when fresh, but it never exactly leaped out of the glass.

T- While malts again dominate up front with a toffee and biscuit character, the EKG hops shine through much more here with the characteristic flavors of light citrus, savory herbs and wood.  There's also the slightest peppery character that I don't recall being there when fresh.

M- One of the biggest changes in this beer over time is that it has unfortunately grown increasingly carbonated.  I had envisioned this beer having a very low carbonation to mimic the traditional cask ale.  While the beer was great at this level after a few weeks it slowly rose beyond that point to upper levels of carbonation that would be more fitting for a Belgian style than British.  The mouthfeel in the end comes out a bit overly spritzy and dry instead of the full bodied but sessionable body expected for the style.

O- This beer came out alright but not phenomenal.  When I first tasted it I thought I might have a contest entry, but over time the aroma and taste went down and the carbonation went up, leaving this one just an ok beer and not a strong representation of the style.  That said, it is nice to have a nicely balanced beer that I can have a few of without feeling the effects and to that end, its a fairly good beer.