Snake River Stout Tasting

This is my attempt at brewing a clone of Snake River Brewing Company's Zonker Stout. Wish I could compare the two side by side, but, alas, Snake River's beers are not available way out here in New England. Might just have to make another trip out their way!

Snake River Stout

Appearance - Black. Really black. Black hole black. Seriously - no light can penetrate this beer. I held up a flashlight on one side of the glass and I don't think a single photon escaped to the other side. Foamy, tan head that dissipates slowly. Some lacing left behind. Did I mention this beer is really, really black?

Aroma - Smells fantastic. Roasty, as would be expected. Mostly coffee-like with some slight chocolate notes. As it warms up a bit, I get a hint of raisin. Some earthy/spicy hops in the background. The aroma is really what I would expect from a beer like this.

Flavor - Bittersweet chocolate and coffee. Some caramel and raisin notes. There's an acridness that lingers...perhaps a tad too much. I'm not sure the crystal malts are quite enough to cut through the roast and acridity. Firm hop bitterness that combines with the acrid roast and then dissipates, leaving the acridness from the roast behind. This may actually be why the acridity seems too much - you definitely notice it once the hops are gone. Even though this finished at 1.022, I feel like it could use some additional sweetness - or maybe the amount of roast just needs to be dialed back a smidgen. However, as it warms up, the acridness seems to be lessening. In fact, now that the beer has warmed up some, the flavors all seem to work quite nicely together...maybe it needs even less tweaking than I had originally thought!

Mouthfeel - Moderate carbonation and body. Not thin, but certainly not too thick either. I think this would be awesome on nitro...or maybe with a little lactose thrown in to give it some creaminess.

Overall - This is a really good beer that could use some tweaking. I'm certainly nit-picking, but next time I would reduce the amount of roasted malts and/or add additional crystal malt. I wish I could get Snake River Brewing Company's beers out this way to compare this to their Zonker Stout. My version is good, but doesn't quite live up to my memory of theirs...though this could also have something to do with the fact that I don't have the glorious Grand Tetons in my backyard!

Snake River Stout

I sense a pattern in my blogging and brewing - apparently the late fall and early winter are not great for me. It makes sense given this time of year is particularly busy for me - between my teaching schedule, the kids' various activities, and the holidays. Still, I always have big plans to brew up a few batches during this time, when the weather is pretty much perfect for brewing. I should learn that I just need to take a month or two off and pick things up in January when I have more time (before the rush of the Spring semester starts). Anywho...

Last week I finally got around to brewing a recipe for my version of the massively award-winning Zonker Stout from the Snake River Brewery (Jackson, WY). I was at the brewery a few times this summer while on family vacation to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. Excellent beer and excellent food. My wife and I were particularly impressed with Zonker Stout - one of the most balanced, tasty stouts we've ever had. I asked the waitress if the brewers ever gave out recipes, but she told me, emphatically, that they did not. Oh well...worth a try, right? Still, undeterred, I emailed the brewery when I returned home from the vacation. Much to my surprise, one of the brewers, Chris Erickson, emailed me back...not just with a recipe, but with their own excel spreadsheet with EVERYTHING you could possibly want to know, but don't need at the homebrew scale. Like "Heat Exchanger Cleaning...Caustic Strength 2-3%...circulation time 1 hour". And, "Water Flow Rate (gal/min)...107.1". How spectacular is that!?!?! I even had a few questions about the recipe that I couldn't quite glean the answers from the spreadsheet and Chris was nice enough to answer them all. So much for not sharing the recipe!

I had hoped to brew this back in the September or October, but it should make a nice late winter/early spring beer. I tweaked some of the grain amounts a little to fit my scaled-down version and still hit the OG I was looking for and used Maris Otter as my base instead of American pale ale malt (not actually sure why I went with this now that I'm looking back at the recipe Chris sent).

Snake River Stout
brewed on 1/17/13

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 58.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 41.4 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
OG: 1.062 SG
FG: 1.022
ABV: 5.3%

Grist
6 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 73.8%
12.0 oz Roasted Barley - 8.5%
8.0 oz Caraamber (36L) - 5.7%
8.0 oz Dark Crystal (150L) - 5.7%
6.0 oz Chocolate Malt (475L) - 4.3%
3.0 oz Black Malt - 2.1%

Hops
15 g Centennial [9.9 %] - 60 min
6 g Tettnang [3.5 %] - 30 min
6 g Tettnang [3.5 %] - 15 min
3 g EKG [4.5 %] - 15 min
9 g EKG [4.5 %] - 1 min
6 g Tettnang [3.5 %] - 1 min

Yeast
California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 152ºF, batch sparge

Mother Rigby's Oatmeal Stout (Redux)

Brewed on 9/11/10

This was a companion brew for my Feathertop Pumpkin Ale. I figured pumpkin beers are not everyone's favorite, but who can pass up a nice creamy oatmeal stout? I even thought this and the pumpkin ale would make a nice "black and tan" (note: I never could get the beers to layer, though the mixed beers was pretty tasty).

Inspired by Jamil Z's award-winning oatmeal stout, I wanted to this to be smooth and thick, with a nice roast/hop balance. This was my second attempt at an all-grain recipe and unlike my first attempt at using this technique (the aforementioned pumpkin beer), I managed to hit all my numbers on this one. This beer didn't ferment out like I had hoped, stopping at 1.022. I think the fact that I failed to aerate the wort properly, did not use any yeast nutrients, and did not make a starter may have been part of the problem. Either that or my mash was too high and I had a lot of unfermentables in there. I tried rousing the yeast, warming it up and even pitching a cup of yeast slurry from the pumpkin beer, but still the gravity remained at 1.022, so I went ahead and bottled it. It turned out pretty good just the same, though perhaps a little thicker than I was looking for. Though I received more rave reviews of this brew than any others I've made to date.

To try to get some more of that distinctive oatmeal cookie aroma and flavor, I toasted the oats on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350°F for ~30 minutes a few hours before mashing. For hops, I went against conventional wisdom and used a small charge for both flavor and aroma (I seem to have a problem with single hopping).

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.50 gal
Boil Size: 2.50 gal
Estimated Color: 43.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 32.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 51.00 % (no sparge)
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.022
ABV: 4.56%

Grist
7 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 71.43%
1 lbs Oats, Flaked, toasted - 9.52 %
10.0 oz Aromatic Malt - 5.95 %
10.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) - 5.95 %
8.0 oz Crystal (Muntons) (56.0 SRM) - 4.76 %
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (500.0 SRM) - 2.38 %

Hops
0.75 oz Challenger [7.00 %] (60 min)
0.12 oz Challenger [7.00 %] (15 min)
0.12 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (15 min)
0.12 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (1 min)
0.12 oz Challenger [7.00 %] (1 min)

Yeast
London Ale (White Labs #WLP013)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 154°F, No Mash Out, No Sparge