American Brown 2 Review

The pace of my brewing has slowed. I've been busy, and at the moment I have nearly 3 gallons of this brown ale in bottles, 3 gallons of APA in the carboy, and around another 6+ gallons of beer in bottles, not to mention 3 gallons of mead and 5 gallons of souring beer in carboys. Not even the combined drinking power of my wife and me can handle so much beer quickly. So I've held off on brewing for a while.

In any case, this brown ale is a little over a month old, so time to review:

Appearance: Deep brown with a reddish tinge. Transparent around the bottom of the glass. Off white head that fades a little too quickly, but sticks to the side of the glass. A bit hazy.

Aroma: Malty sweetness, with some toasty character. Minimal earthy and floral hop notes.

Taste: Sweet but not cloying due to a moderate bitterness. Again malty and toasty, with moderate to low caramel flavors. A dark bitter chocolate note is in there as well but its subtle. The bitterness is there, maybe a little too much.

Mouthfeel: Moderate to low carbonation, medium body. Slightly bitter aftertaste.

Overall: Pretty solid brown ale. Easy drinking, tasty and moderate alcohol. I like it. Maybe next time reduce the bitterness slightly. Also I'm not sure why the head on this particular bottle wasn't good as previous bottles have had better foam.

American Pale Ale

Yesterday I brewed an American Pale Ale from the recipe in Brewing Classic Styles, of course scaled to 3 gallons. I also put a little more late hops in than the recipe would call for, and used Maris Otter as the base malt to give it a little more malty character.

A new homebrew store opened in my area a few weeks ago, and it's great because it's much closer to my place and therefore much less time consuming than going to the other place. And I got a new toy: a grain mill with an electric drill. The mill is used and I may need to lube it / clean it a bit because it seemed to have some trouble sucking in the grains to between the rollers, and so crushing did not go smoothly.

The brew itself, however, did.

American Pale Ale

6.25# Maris Otter
6oz Munich
6oz Victory
5oz White Wheat Malt

.4oz Nugget, 13%, 60 min
.3oz Cascade, 6%, 10min
.3oz Centenial, 10.5%, 10min
.4oz Cascade, 6%, 1min
.4oz Centenial, 10.5%, 1min

 WLP001

Mash @ 152F

Brewed 5/11/14
Hit my mash temp well, but I overheated the sparge water. I let it cool a bit but probably did not get it as low as it should have been.  Not sure if I extracted tannins and if so, how much of a problem it will create.

I also got the right volume, about 4.1 gallons, with an OG of 1.046. So, pretty good.

The boil went fine, but the cooling was a bit slow and I only got it down to 110F before putting the kettle in a tub of 60F water to finally chill.

At around 9:15pm, when the wort was about 70F, I siphoned it onto the yeast cake from the Brown Ale I recently brewed. The wort did not look as clear as it normally looks. Not sure if it's a problem with the crush or what. I hope it will clear up.

Placed the plastic carboy in a tub of 68F water. Ambient air temps around 60F, so it may cool down a little. 

5/12/14, 5pm - Nice fermentation going. 62F ambient air.

American Brown 2 Brewday

Unfortunately I have been busy / lazy for the last few weeks and as I result I am just now getting to writing up a brew day log to an American brown I brewed on April 20th. I'll only post the recipe below, since I didn't really take notes and I can't remember how exactly it went.

The recipe is based on a clone recipe for Bell's Best Brown:

Bell's Best Clone
3 Gallons
6.5# US 2-Row
9oz C-60
9oz Special Roast
9oz Victory
2oz Chocolate

.35oz Nugget, 13.2% 60min
. 25oz Cascade, 6%, 15 min
.25oz Willamette, 5%, 10 min
.25oz Willamette, 5%, 1 min
.25oz Cascade, 6%, 1min

WLP001

Expected OG/FG/ABV/IBU: 1.058, 1.015, 27, 5.6%

Mash @ 152F.

Brewed: 4/20/14
Made a yeast starter the day before. 
Fermented @ 60F, then after one week moved to 68F ambient to finish fermentation.

Bottled: 5/11/14
Tasted good, but body seemed a little bit thin.

Double IPA Review

I finally brewed a DIPA, hoping to blast as much hops into the beer as possible, especially in the aroma. I used the "whirlpool" hop technique for the first time to achieve this, as I have heard that it works quite well. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results, since it has the best hop aroma of any beer I've brewed.

Appearance: Burnt orange body, slightly hazy but overall pretty clear. Billowing off-white head that sticks around. Pretty good looking beer I would say. The lacing sticks to the side of the glass as I drink.

Aroma: Dank hop aromas dominate. Piney, resinous, but also a kind of grapefruit or citrusy note. I don't get a lot of fruitiness, it's more dank than that. It's pretty hard to describe the smell. The intensity and saturation of the aroma is good, better than most or all of my other beers, but it cannot be detected from several feet away, like some IPAs / DIPAs can be. I think I detect a bit of alcohol in the nose, but its very subtle. As it warms up, I think I get more fruity quality to the hop aroma.

Taste: Firm bitterness, but not overly harsh, tannic or grassy. I get a fruit like quality, maybe grapefruit, orange, mango or the like, but the bitterness has more piney bite than a fruity quality. It's fairly smooth however. As far as malt, I do get a subtle malty taste in there, with a little bit of sweetness. I don't taste any alcohol, despite the approximately 8% ABV.

Mouthfeel: Moderate to heavy body. It kind of coats the tounge. Mid-range carbonation. I don't think it's "bone-dry" and so I do get some residual sweetness. Aftertaste is hoppy goodness. The bitterness is smoother than many of my other IPAs, but does have a bit of spicy / tannic / vegetable "bite". Normal and / or desired for a DIPA.

Overall: A very hoppy DIPA beer, dominated by the "dank" and piney type of hops. Some malt taste and residual sweetness, with moderate body.

I'm pretty pleased with this one, as it came out as hoppy as I was hoping for: aromatic and bitter, but with a solid malt backbone. I'll will definitely be using the "hop stand" technique in the future with hoppy beers. I think an interesting experiment to try here would be to dial down the IBUs and the OG, but keep the late / dry hops schedule, and see what happens.

Also I will definitely try the Summit / Nugget combo again, even if I don't brew this exact same recipe. At some point to I should try to exactly clone the Green Flash DIPA.

Flanders Red Review

My first sour beer. Yay! It sure took a long time. I brewed this one in September of 2012, attempting to get a beer roughly like Rodenbach or Monk's Cafe. This type of beer is wonderful but the wait is agonizing. Perhaps the long wait somehow makes it taste better in the end.



Appearance: Translucent coppery-brown in color. Not red. Thin white head that dissipates fairly quickly, but leaves some bubbles at the contact point with the glass. 

Aroma: Cleanly but moderately sour. Fruity, like cherries, plums or the like. The fruityness dominates. I think I can detect some brett character in there, as well as some sweetness. Definitely I think the beer smells really good. No hop aroma, and I don't get any wood aroma.

Taste: Maltiness and cherry-like fruit notes up front. Sourness is there but not overpowering in any way. I get some sweetness as well, but balances well with the sourness and the fruityness. In the background I get some musty funky flavors, and maybe some slight tannic dryness in the aftertaste. The taste overall is quite complex.

Mouthfeel: High carbonation, but not effervescent or spritzy. Medium body.

Overall: A sour-sweet Flanders Red with a fruity smell and a very complex taste. I enjoy it very much, but ultimately I am not really sure how well it fits into the style. Should it be more sour in taste or darker in appearance? I don't know.

For Next Time: Not sure. Just brew more sour beers to get an idea of the process, the wait, etc.

Oatmeal Stout Review

I've been pretty busy for the last few weeks and will probably still be busy for the next week or so. That is the reason for the longish delay in reviewing the oatmeal stout. But here goes.

Appearance: Deep brown / black. Not completely opaque, but close. Small tan head that dissipates quickly, leaving only the surface of the beer and a few bubbles around the perimeter of the surface.

Aroma: I get a roast / chocolatey aroma, like a classic dry stout. A hint of dark fruit is somewhere in there. No hop aroma. I'm not really sure that the oats have contributed anything to the aroma, since I don't get anything that smells like oatmeal cookies.

Taste: Again, roast, coffee and chocolatey notes, but pretty subdued. No astringency. It's fairly dry, I would say almost as dry as an Irish Dry stout. I get some hop bitterness in the aftertaste. It's kind of earthy and blends well with the roast flavor.

Mouthfeel: Moderate carbonation, but a thickish mouthfeel provided by the oats. Roasty aftertaste.

Overall:  It tastes quite good, especially as it warms to serving temperature. As intended, it's tasty but overpowering, and it is low in ABV.  A good session beer. But the head retention is disappointing. Next time I will add some Carapils, wheat, or flaked barley to give it better foam.

Double IPA Brewday

So, in a quest to make a really hoppy beer, I finally went for a DIPA. I really wanted to see if I could get the massive hop bitterness, flavor and aroma that characterize a good Double IPA. Sadly, I don't have access to the iconic west-coast DIPAs from Russian River Brewing, since I live on the east coast of the US, but Green Flash does distribute its Imperial IPA  to this area. An approximate clone recipe for that beer was the source for my recipe below, and when I taste my recipe I can compare it a bit to the Green Flash DIPA. However, I am not going for an exact clone, as I modified the hopping schedule a little bit because I really wanted to try the "hop stand" technique, which can apparently result in some really great hop aroma and flavors.

Double IPA
3.25 gallons

8.6# US 2-Row
8oz Carapils
8oz Table Sugar
5oz Crystal 40L
5oz Crystal 60L

Mash at 152F for 60min
90min boil

1oz Summit, 17.5%, first wort
1oz Summit, 17.5%, 60 min
.3oz Nugget, 13.2%, 15min
.6oz Nugget, 13.2%, 10min
.3oz Summit, 17.5%, 5min
.5oz Nugget, 13.2%, 1min
.5oz Summit, 17.5%, 1min

.75oz Summit, 17.5%, Flameout, steep for 20min in whirlpool
.75oz Summit, 17.5%, flameout + 20, steep for 20min in whirpool, then cool wort

1.5oz Summit, dry, 7 days

US-05

Expected OG/FG/IBU/ABV: 1.081 / 1.020 / 197+ / 7.9%
(Note that the IBUs are likely above the point where additional IBUs make a difference in the taste, reportedly at around 100 IBUs.)


3/21/14 - Made a starter with some US-05 I had washed and stored in a mason jar.

Brewed 3/22/14

Hit my mash temps right on, and at the end of the second runnings I got about 4.75 gallons of 1.052 wort (no sugar added yet). With that volume, I had to be VERY careful not get a boil over. Luckily my burner can go to a low enough flame that I didn't have a problem.

Added the first hops, it smelled great. After the second addition of hops, it smelled great and was looking a little green.

At 20 minutes I put the worth chiller in to sanitize it, then connected the pump using a new set of plastic quick-disconnects I got to make cleaning and easier. I started the pump to, again to sanitize it and the tubing.

As I proceeded to add the hops, the beer started looking really green in color, but smelled awesome. The March pump did a fine job with pumping all the hoppy wort, but again my chiller was sort of tipping over. I really need to find a fix for this. After the flameout hops were added, I just let the wort continue to circulate through the pump. The wort cooled to around 170F by 20 minutes after flameout, when I added the second ounce of steeping hops. After another 20 minutes, I started the chilling procees, getting the wort down to 70F before turning the chiller and pumping the wort into the Better Bottle.

Again, having a March pump is awesome! 

Obviously, there was a huge volume of hops in the wort. I didn't use hop bags or anything to filter them out, and so all but a small bit of hop debris and trub ended up in the fermenter. I hope this won't cause a problem.

3/27/14 - The beer was fermenting, with a smallish krausen, not yet full active. Ambient temps were high 50s. I moved the beer up to an area around 66F.

3/28/14- High krausen. The fermentation was very active, making the beer cloudy with yeast and the krausen dark and thick with hop gunk, yeast, and grub. The bubbles coming out of the airlock smelled pretty hoppy, unlike the normal smell.

3/30/14 - Transferred to a secondary fermentor and added dry hops, leaving almost all of the hop debris and yeast sediment behind in the primary fermenter. Didn't get a sample of the beer, but it smelled really good.

4/7/14 - Bottled, going for 2.2 volumes of CO2.