Best beer Xmas gift EVAH

My beautiful and wonderful wife, being the beauty and wonder that she is, had a friend secretly ship the above selection of beers. This may not be so great for those of you out there on the west coast, but for this east coast beer guy I can't think of anything better.

For those who don't know, these are all mostly beers from the acclaimed Russian River Brewing Company. Included in this shipment was one bottle each of Pliny the Elder, Temptation, Damnation, Redemption, Blind Pig, Damnation 23, and Triple Exaltation, and 2 bottles each of Consecration and Supplication. And a bottle of Triple Exaltation from Eel River Brewing, another fine West Coast brewery (whose bottle label and beer name make it easy to confuse with a Russian River beer for the less than careful observer)

I have wanted to try these beers for years and kept hoping I would one day stumble upon them at the local package store. I had given up hope and thought that my only shot was to make a trip out west and try them at the brewery. While a trip to "Wine Country" would still be superb, I'll happily enjoy these beers while sitting here in not-so-snowy-yet New England.

Looking forward to January

The fall semester is finally behind me - just a few finishing touches before submitting grades. Christmas is just ahead and my shopping is almost done (yeah, yeah, I know there's only like 3 shopping days left). And that leads us into January. I have big plans for January:

Blogging:
1) long overdue updates of my local wild yeast "saison" and my sour, cranberry, Brett experiment

2) tasting notes for my last batch (back in August!!!), an Irish red ale, and for my 2011 Empirical Series brew, an oaked, imperial porter

3) description of my brew day process - an unusual (I think) all-grain, 3.5 gallon batch, pseudo-parti-gyle technique

4) recap of January's brew days (see below)

In addition to posting more, I am hoping to get in three brews during the month. This is ambitious for me, but I want to make up for some lost time. The brews I want to do, in order of priority:

Brewing:
(updated to accurately reflect what I DID end up brewing)

1) Belgian Tripel - after my wife mentioned how much she liked Chimay White after having it for the first time, I decided I wanted to take a shot at brewing my first Tripel.  Given it was a new style for me to brew, it immediately jumped to the top of the priority list.
 
 1) 2) Altbier - I've made an altbier each of the last two Januaries, which is when my cellar and garage are at the right temps for a cooler fermentation and a brief lagering period. I'm not yet fully happy with the recipe, so I am going to tweak it again. Of course, it's the first day of winter and outside temps approached 60°F today, so who knows if I'll have the right temperatures for this.

2) Wild yeast Kölsch - I think the wild yeast I collected would work well in a kölsch recipe and I am interested to see how the yeast handles a cooler fermentation temp. This, of course, assumes that the yeast I have stored in my fridge is still viable.

3) Kölsch - This brew got pushed into March.  Also, I opted against using my wild yeast for fear of it being too old, so I decided to stay more-or-less traditional and instead used yeast harvested from this year's Altbier.  I used a new-to-me hop, Opal, for this, so it isn't quite traditional.  I am also seriously toying with the idea of dryhopping with more Opal. I guess it might not be so traditional after all. 

3) 4) Funky Oatmeal Stout - I was actually gearing up to brew this recipe back in September, before brewing and blogging took a backseat to prepping lectures, grading papers, and driving to rinks across New England. Might as well proceed with it now.  Since this brew also got pushed into late-March I decided it wasn't really the right season to brew an Oatmeal Stout, so I decided to take this in a completely different direction and fermented it with a mix of yeasts - an English strain, a Belgian strain, and dregs from a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin's Madrugada Obscura and from a bottle of Russian River Consecration.  I'll let it sit for a while.  Maybe it will be ready for next Fall.

Well, that's the plan. Wish me luck.

Four months and counting

I had such BIG plans for brewing this Fall. Amazing how plans can fall apart. Between a rather time-intensive teaching schedule and an equally time-intensive hockey season for my son (you wouldn't believe me if I tallied up the number of hours spent in various rinks, not to mention driving to and from them) I haven't been able to rake the leaves in my yard, never mind finding 5 hours to brew. I still have the bag of grain for the oatmeal stout I was getting ready to brew in September. I thought I was going to have time back in the beginning of November, so I went ahead and made the yeast starter for it. That's currently taking up space in my fridge.

The semester ends soon, so maybe I'll find some time to brew. Of course I still have those leaves to rake (thank goodness we've had such unseasonably mild weather - actually, I'm rather dismayed by it - 70 degrees in December isn't normal or right). I still have to get the Christmas tree up too. And buy some Christmas presents. Perhaps January will work better.

Sigh.

Gaelic Storm

A few months ago, I stopped by the Newport Storm brewery for their tour and tasting. One of the beers they still had on tap was their Spring seasonal, an Irish Red. I can't think of any other commercial Irish Red Ale's I've tried - I think Smithwick's is supposed to be of that style, but, to me anyway, it leaves much to be desired, to me anyway. I tried brewing Jamil's version a while back, but it really did not turn out well (nothing to do with Jamil's recipe - it was completely my lack of brewing acumen at the time). Newport Storm's version, however, is excellent - there is this nuttiness and roastiness that I really like and it has this overall unique flavor. Being the resourceful homebrewer that I am, I checked out Newport Storm's website to see if I could gather enough info to take a stab at recreating their beer.

The website includes a lot of good info - including the malts, hops and yeast used, starting and ending gravity, color, and IBUs. I love it when commercial breweries pander to the beer geeks. Still, there were a couple of things I wanted to know more about. The first one I figured would be crucial to the outcome of this beer - how much roasted barley to use. The second one came about mostly from surprise in seeing Cascade hops listed in the description - I needed to know when those were used in the process because I was not expecting any American "C" hops in this beer (I need to see if I can pick it out next time I have the commercial version). So, I emailed the brewery, hoping to get more insights.

Even more than I love when breweries pander to beer geeks on their websites is when they are generous with their time and info on a one-on-one basis through email. Well, Newport Storm came through again - I received a very informative email from the Brewmaster, Derek Luke. He gave me their grist breakdown for a 30 barrel batch and told me to put Cascades in "at the end". Sweet!

As much as I really wanted to stay true to Derek's recipe, my LHBS does not carry Amber Malt. I've read that you can toast your own malt instead, but since I don't have a mill, I really need to get all my ingredients elsewhere. I thought about ordering a pound of Amber Malt online, but I really didn't feel like waiting to brew this nor did I feel like paying shipping on just a pound of malt. So, I decided to tweak the recipe a little by subbing a pound of Vienna malt in for the Amber Malt (about a 3:2 ratio of Vienna:Amber), realizing that it takes me away from the original, but that it will hopefully make me a very nice beer. Given the warm temps, even in my basement, and lack of temperature control fermentation equipment, I went with the swamp cooler technique, managing to keep temps in the low 60s for the bulk of fermentation.

Cheers to Derek and Newport Storm!

Gaelic Storm - an Irish Red Ale

Brewed on 8/8/11

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 15.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 26.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 78.00 %
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.0%
Grist
5 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) - 76.1 %
1 lbs Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) - 15.2 %
3.0 oz Roasted Barley (500.0 SRM) - 2.9 %
3.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) - 2.9 %
3.0 oz Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) - 2.9 % (for mash pH)

Hops
7 g Northdown [12.30 %] - (60.0 min)
14 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - (15.0 min)
10 g Cascade [6.10 %] - (2.0 min)

Yeast
California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 152°F, Batch Sparge

Vaccinium - update

It's been a little while since I've said anything about my attempt at a sour cranberry ale with Brett. Well, this beer has been quietly sitting on the cranberries and the Brett for several months now and had developed a nice pellicle on and around the floating raft of cranberries. Much of the pellicle has actually fallen away by now and I figured it was time to get the beer off the fruit and into a tertiary vessel. So, I racked it into a 3-gallon glass carboy and added 0.5 ounces of medium toast Hungarian oak cubes that had been soaking in some Deep Purple zinfandel (BTW, this is a spectacular wine).

The beer is a a hazy pink with some nice sour and Brett aromas. The taste is actually quite mild, but not too mild - I definitely taste the cranberries and the Brett character. I'm assuming the Brett character will increase a bit more as it ages. I'm excited about this beer - I think it just might turn out really good, despite all the crazy things I'm trying with it (e.g. 14% acidulated malt, primary fermentation with a wine yeast, cranberries, Brett, wine-soaked oak cubes). However, the one thing that is concerning me is that the gravity is only down to 1.018-1.020 (I think my hydrometer is reading a little high, thus the range). I really expected this thing to be much lower by now. It still tastes great - much drier than I would expect given a 1.020 gravity. Everything I've read and heard seems to indicate that Brett pretty much eats through anything. This is precisely the reason I mashed high (~160°F) and used a wine yeast - to leave some residual compounds for the Brett to metabolize. I'm not sure why the gravity is still as high as it is. I've posted about this over at the Burgundian Babble Belt homebrew forum and the only thing that seems to have any consensus might be that the Brettanomyces claussenii isn't a particularly strong attenuator.

So, for now, my plan is to let it sit in the tertiary vessel for a month or so and see where it goes. I'm hoping to be able to bottle by the end of August so that it has a few months in the bottle before Thanksgiving. Not sure yet what my bottling plan is - I'd like it to highly carbonated, so ideally I'd like to cork and cage with 750 ml champagne bottles, but I'm not really set up for that and I'm not sure I should splurge for the equipment for just this beer (though if it turns out well, there will certainly be similar beers to brew in the future). In any case, I have some time to think about this.

Tasting: Kahakai Blonde Ale

I brewed this beer specifically for my family's annual July 4th "Luau". I wanted a nice "summer beer" - something crisp, golden, not overly aggressive (in in alcohol or in hoppiness). Overall, I am very happy with the way this turned out - it worked perfectly for the event - though there are certainly some changes I would make if I made it again.

Tasted on 7/4/11. Perfect Cape Cod summer evening - clear, breezy, and comfortable. Poured into my Buzzards Bay Brewing Company (now defunct) tumbler.

Appearance - Clear, deep gold - a very pretty color. Thin white head that leaves some lacing that slowly dissipates.

Aroma - Some hop fruitiness and sweet malt.

Taste - Malty and sweet. I think there actually might be too much Carahell - it could use a little less residual sweetness. Slight sulfur that gives this a lager-like quality that is very nice. I would presume that this is from the California Lager strain in the American Ale Yeast Blend. Diffuse bitterness, not as crisp as I would like. Some unwelcome astringency that lingers - this might be from too high a mash pH extracting some tannins.

Mouthfeel - Good carbonation, good body (not too thick), very drinkable.

Overall - Maybe not as crisp as I would have liked, but definitely an easy drinker. Good beer for a hot summer day. Next time I think I would add some acidualted malt to lower the mash pH and cut back the Carahell to under 5%, maybe as low as 3-4%.

Tasting: Sweet Caroline Amber

This is my first attempt at a formal description of one of my finished beers. Not sure I have enough experience to properly use the most accurate descriptors, but I'll do my best. For this beer I was trying to create a relatively straight-forward American Amber Ale that would have a quick turnaround and that would showcase Citra hops.

Tasted on 7/7/11. Hot, slightly humid evening. Poured into a Red Sox tumbler my son gave me for Father's Day.

Appearance - Pours a hazy amber-brown, more brown than amber and darker than the SRM estimate. Nice off-white head that leaves some thin lacing. Not sure why this beer remains so hazy - most of my beers have some chill haze, but this brew seems to have it worse than the others, even after a couple of weeks in the fridge. Also not sure why my beers all seem to turn out darker than the SRM estimate.

Aroma - Caramel and citrus. I get a strong grapefruit aroma when poured, but that quickly dissipates to more sweet fruit than grapefruit. The best descriptors I could come up with for this smell are ripe melon and mango. I assume this is the Citra hops.

Taste - Caramelly sweet, perhaps too much so. Nice bitterness that does not linger. Clean. Some fruity hop notes, which accentuates the overall sweetness of this beer.

Mouthfeel - Smooth, almost thick and creamy. Lower carbonation than I had planned for.

Overall - A very good beer (so good, so good?) - seems to hit all the style points for an American Amber Ale. Perhaps too sweet/caramelly and thick for my tastes though, at least on a hot summer evening. This reinforces my general observation that I tend to enjoy beers that use minimal crystal malts - my favorite brews have been the ones where I haven't exceeded 5% crystal malts. Next time I'll cut out some of the crystal malt and increase the carbonation to help dry and thin out the flavor and mouthfeel.