Cranberries and Brett...again...but different

I should probably ditch this fascination I have with trying to use cranberries in a beer, but there's something about using a locally-grown, native fruit that I just can't let it go.  My first attempt at using cranberries was HIGHLY experimental and had disappointing results (though I am geared up for another tasting to see if time has helped).  Cranberries contain a lot of tannins and they seemed to add a fair amount of astringent bite to the last beer, which was too much for such a dry beer to handle.  But, I've been thinking that a richer, maltier, "sweeter" beer would work well with cranberries.  Especially if I don't overdo the cranberry addition.  So, I brewed up an English-style brown ale sort of beer that will hopefully hold up to the cranberries.

As you can see from the grist bill below, this is decidedly not a standard brown ale recipe and is not the way I would build a brown ale if I were starting from scratch.  But I wasn't starting from scratch.  You see, I had grain already milled for another version of my ongoing attempt to perfect a hoppy red ale recipe I've been playing with the past couple of years.  However, I never got around to brewing it, and I wanted to brew up this new beer so that it would be ready in time for Thanksgiving, and I didn't feel like wasting all this grain.  So, I decided I could start with the grain I had, add some more crystal malt and some chocolate malt and...voila...turn it into a "brown" ale.  Some of the grain weights are a little weird too since I had too much grain in the original red ale recipe for the lower gravity I was looking for with this beer, so I pulled out a couple of pounds of grain and just extrapolated the remaining grain weights based on percentages.

As for the yeast...I decided to go with the Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois strain I harvested from my multi-grain farmhouse style ale I brewed over the summer.  I absolutely loved the fruity character I got from that strain and I am thinking that it will complement both the malt and the cranberries.

Speaking of the cranberries....I am planning on picking up some freshly harvested fruit from one of the original cultivated cranberry bogs on Cape Cod.  This bog is now currently owned by "Annie's Crannies", but was originally farmed by Captain Henry Hall, the man credited with being the first to commercially cultivate cranberries.  I'll add the fruit to secondary once the fermentation is fully complete.  I'm not sure yet how much I will use, but am thinking on the order of 0.25 pounds per gallon.  I figure it is better to be conservative.  I may also bottle some of the base beer without the cranberries just in case the cranberry version turns out to be not so great.

So much for trying a simpler approach this time around....

[UPDATE 10/21/12 - I decided to rack the entire batch onto 1 pound of cranberries.  The cranberries were picked up fresh from Annie's Crannies, as mentioned above. I vacuum-sealed them, and then froze them, thawed them, then froze them again, before thawing them a second time before racking the beer.  I'll let the beer sit on the cranberries for 10 days or so.  Not sure if this is enough time, but I want to get it in the bottle in time to be ready for Thanksgiving.]

Henry Hall Ale
brewed on 9/26/12

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 22.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
OG: 1.046 SG
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.5%

Grist
3 lbs 10.0 oz Pale Malt - 58.9%
12.0 oz Pilsner Malt - 12.2%
6.0 oz Crystal 120 - 6.1%
6.0 oz Crystal 60 - 6.1%
6.0 oz Munich I - 6.1%
6.0 oz White Wheat Malt - 6.1%
3.0 oz Chocolate Malt - 3.0%
0.7 oz Roasted Barley - 0.7%
0.7 oz Acidulated - 0.7% (for mash pH)

Hops
9 g EKG [4.50 %] - 60 min
7 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 30 min

Misc
1 lb of fresh cranberries added to secondary

Yeast
Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois (WLP644)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 150ºF, batch sparge

Pumpkin Beer

A couple of years ago I brewed up a really nice pumpkin beer and thought it was about time to try it again.  I even planned way ahead and planted a sugar pumpkin plant in my home garden for the sole intention of using the pumpkins in a beer.  Unfortunately, the plant had some serious issues and I didn't get a single fruit from its vine (in fact, all my squash/cukes/melon plants had issues this year).  So, I went with Plan B and picked up a couple of small pumpkins at a local farm/orchard.

There are a multitude of methods out there for brewing a pumpkin beer - from using a canned puree to baking whole pumpkins in the oven with brown sugar to skipping the pumpkin altogether and just using the requisite pumpkin pie spices.  I didn't like any of those options.  I wanted to use fresh pumpkin, but didn't want to deal with the extra steps of baking it (and the mess and probable stuck sparge that goes along with it).  I did a little research and discovered that the gelatinization temperature for pumpkins falls within the normal mash temperatures.  So, I figured if there's any starch that needs to be converted, it can just happen right there in the mash (though it turns out, as far as I can tell, there's not a lot to convert).

I cut the tops of the pumpkins, scooped out the seeds and stringy pulp, and chopped them up into chunks (rind and all).  I then processed the chunks with my cuisinart with the handy-dandy grater attachement.  The resulting pumpkin "hash" was mixed right into the mash.  After an hour, full conversion was confirmed with an iodine test and I proceeded to sparge as normal with no problems.  The brew process went without a hitch.  I decided to use a combination of EKG and Challenger hops since I have found recently that I really like the beers I've made that use more than a single hop variety - there just seems to be an added dimension to these batches.  I also added a judicious amount of spices (again, using a combination to give the final beer more complexity).  Most pumpkin beer recipes I see out there tend to only add hops for bittering, letting the spices predominate the flavor and aroma, but I like the way English hops meld with the spices, so I opted to add some late hops.

For the yeast, I decided to try something different and went with WLP072 French Ale (Platinum Release)...mostly because I had it already in my fridge after picking it up on a whim earlier in the summer, but also because I figured its malt-forward characteristics would work well in a beer like this.  I pitched a 1 liter starter and fermentation took off.  I currently have it in my "mudroom" (for lack of a better term) where the ambient temp is ~64°F.  I hope to have a few bottles ready for a pumpkin-carving party in October, but I imagine it won't really hit its peak until at least Halloween.

Feathertop 2.0
brewed on 9/19/12 (and into the morning hours of 9/20/12)

Recipe Specifications 
Batch Size: 4.00 gal

Estimated Color: 11.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 69.00 %
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.7%

Grist
5 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 52.6 %
1 lbs Caramunich I - 10.5 %
8.0 oz Melanoidin Malt - 5.3 %
8.0 oz Vienna Malt - 5.3 %
8.0 oz Wheat Malt - 5.3 %
2 lbs Pumpkin, fresh, raw, grated - 21.1 %

Hops
10 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 60.0 min
10 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 60.0 min
4 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 15.0 min
4 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 15.0 min
4 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 1.0 min
4 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 1.0 min

Spices (all added in last minute of the boil)
0.50 tsp Cinnamon, ground
0.50 tsp Nutmeg, ground
0.25 tsp Ginger, ground
0.25 tsp Allspice, ground
0.13 tsp Cloves, ground

Yeast
French Ale (White Labs #WLP072)

 Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 150°F, batch sparge

Small batch experiments

I brew 3.5-4 gallons batches. Most of the time the beers spend 3-4 weeks in primary (of the plastic bucket variety) and then I rack them to the bottling bucket and bottle. However, occasionally I move a beer into a 3-gallon glass carboy for extended aging. When I do this, I tend to have a little beer left over in the primary. Recently, instead of dumping this out, I've been racking this left over into a 1-gallon glass jug so that I can try something different with it by adding fruit and/or spices and/or souring cultures. My first experiment of this sort was to add the dregs of Cisco Brewery's Dark Woods to about a half gallon of my 2010 imperial porter, Tabula Rasa. I was a bit skeptical about souring such a big and roasty beer, but it actually turned out fantastic. This success has emboldened me to continue on with this sort of small batch experiments. The only problem I have though is that I haven't really figured out a way to efficiently bottle them without losing too much volume in the process, which is why I currently have several of these in my cellar aging longer than anticipated.

Current experiments (from left to right in the above photo):

Blueberry Wine
I thought I would include this here even though it doesn't fit in with the rest of my beer experiments. Pure blueberry juice from Trader Joe's, augmented with wildflower honey (also from Trader Joe's...I love this place BTW...whenever I shop there I spend a lot of time in the juice aisle thinking about what I could ferment). This particular batch has been sitting there for almost a year now. I should probably bottle it.

Spiced Wheat Wine
Dried Thai red dragon chili peppers, star anise, grains of paradise, and cacao nibs added to my dark wheat wine, Bene Victum. Go bold or go home, right?

Sour Cherry Oatmeal Stout
Tart cherries from Oregon Fruit added to my already funky oatmeal stout. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Sour Kölsch (Crooked Sunbeam)
Oak cubes and the dregs of Russian River's Temptation added to my Sonnenstrahl Kölsch. I added a little DME-based wort with some German Opal hops, lemon peel, and grains of paradise as well to give the RR bugs a little extra to chew on. I only added a little oak, but I am nervous that I have let this beer sit too long. Might be an oak bomb by now.

All of these are probably ready to go into bottles. I just need to find the time to deal with them! Hopefully I'll get it together so that I can get tasting notes for these posted sometime by December.

Of Bison and Beer

I recently returned from two-weeks in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. It was absolutely incredible - between the wide open spaces, the wildlife, the hydrothermal features, and the spectacular mountain views we had a great time. The kids were the perfect ages (8 and 11) and all in all it was a wonderful family vacation. (For those interested, you can check out some photos from the trip here.)

Of course, no vacation would be complete without good beer, right? Luckily, I am happy to say, there is plenty of really good beer in and around the parks. We flew into Salt Lake City and hit the local Whole Foods to stock up before driving out to the parks. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a well-stocked section of local craft beer sold by the bottle, more so since it was a Sunday and I didn't think Utah allowed alcohol sales on Sundays.

Fortunately, I was wrong. I picked up an assorted 6-pack - five from Uinta Brewing Co. and one from the Wasatch Brewery (as a biologist I couldn't resist their "Evolution Amber Ale"). From Uinta I grabbed one bottle each of their Hoodoo Kolsch, Wyld Extra Pale Ale, Cutthroat Pale Ale, Trader Session IPA, and Sum'r Blonde Ale. I don't have any detailed tasting notes from these beers, but they were all good. If anything, some of the Uinta beers may have been too malty and perhaps not quite dry enough. However, I would certainly not hesitate to have them all again. My one regret is not picking up a bottle of Wasatch's Polygamy Porter, which has a tagline of "Why have just one?". Brilliant.

I was also very impressed with the selection of beers available within the park. I had the opportunity to try a few beers that I had heard great things about but can't get at home. I was ecstatic to find Big Sky's Moose Drool and Deschutes' Black Butte Porter. Both were world-class and I wish I could find them around here. Red Lodge Brewery's Bent Nail IPA and Hefeweizen were also quite tasty.

The real stars of the vacation however were a couple of places outside the Grand Tetons, in Jackson, WY - Snake River Brewing and The Bird. We ate dinner at each place twice during our stay and everything we had - food and beer - were excellent. Of particular note was Snake River's Zonker's stout. Full of flavor - rich chocolate and coffee, without any harshness. Perfectly balanced. I've already sent them an email asking for info about brewing this beer. Not sure if I'll get a response, but if I do, this beer will jump to the top of my fall brewing. The Bird served incredible hamburgers and fries and their menu alone is worth reading (it was hysterical to hear my 11-year old daughter order the "Ghetto on a Good Day"). On top of the great food, this place served German beers on tap. I couldn't pass up the Reissdorf Kölsch, served in authentic 0.2L Kölsch glasses. Perfect way to wash down a juicy hamburger on a hot summer evening. If you're ever in Jackson, you have to check this place out (it's a locals joint, so you'll have to drive a bit out of downtown Jackson to find it).

Although this wasn't intended to be a "craft beer vacation", it just worked out so nicely that excellent craft beers were readily available. Fittingly, I even found some amazing hop plants growing in the back yard of the place we stayed while in the Grand Tetons! Moulton Ranch is an old Mormon homestead, so I was surprised to find hops on the property. I spoke with the current owners and they weren't sure when or why the hops started growing there - they've "always been there" and they just let them grow up every year and don't do anything with them. The hops looked amazing and smelled wonderful. I thought about harvesting some (with permission, of course), but I wasn't sure if they were quite ready or if I really wanted to deal with it. Looking back, I now wish I had...how many people can say they've brewed beer with Mormon hops that were probably planted a generation or two ago? Guess I'm just going to have to go back someday!

<-- check out these hops!

Aged Homebrew - Summit APA Tasting

It's been a little while since I reviewed one of the "aged homebrews" I found in my cellar. This is the third of four beers that were among the very first beers I brewed and which have been sitting in my cellar for a couple of years. So far, both the Irish Red Ale and the Scottish 60/- Ale have held up pretty good to the test of time. I wasn't sure what to expect with this current beer. The mysterious "APA?" on the cap leads me to believe that it is the last surviving bottle of my first attempt at making a red American Pale Ale. Apparently, I didn't know about the "American Amber" category at that point, since I have since learned that what I was attempting to brew pretty much falls under that category. Now that I think about it, this beer can probably be considered to be the genesis of my "Little Rhody Red" recipe that I have been trying to perfect.

However, this beer, at the time that I brewed in back in the summer of 2010, was decidedly NOT good. It wasn't all bad - the aroma was actually quite nice and it looked exactly like I was hoping it would - a nice, reddish orange. Really made you want to drink it. But, the flavor completely did not live up to the promise of the first impression. In fact, I would say this beer was downright deceitful. It looked and smelled delicious, but upon tasting the beer, there was an unmistakable, in-your-face onion flavor. Yes, onion. I've since attributed this flavor to the batch of Summit hops I used. Summit is apparently a somewhat hit-or-miss hop - when its good, it has this wonderful tangerine character (which is what I was going for). But when it's bad, you get onions and garlic (NOT what I was going for). This beer scared me away from Summit, but it is probably worth another shot given that others have had great success with it. In any case, I waited a few months to see if the flavor would dissipate, but it never really did, so most of this batch went down the drain (my only dumped batch so far). I didn't remember hiding a bottle away, though I am glad I did since it gives me the opportunity to see what happens to that onion flavor over the course of a couple of years. Amazingly, time has done great things to this beer.

Appearance - Deep red-brown with a foamy tan head that shrinks away pretty quickly. Darker than it was originally, which seems to be a common characteristic of these old beers. Clarity is excellent.

Aroma - Subdued, but with some hints of roast and caramel. I can definitely still smell some citrus fruit from the Summit hops. Some oxidation is evident as well, but not really cardboardy. More sherry-like. Although different from what I remember it being, this beer smells really quite nice.

Flavor - Rich malt. Some vinous oxidation flavors, but they come across quite nicely, adding a dark fruitiness that makes this beer very interesting. Raisiny perhaps? Still a decent amount of bitterness, though malt clearly dominates. A faint tartness was evident in the first sip, but is harder to detect as I drink. Most importantly though - NO ONION FLAVOR!! Absolutely no hint of it. This beer is 100x better at 2 years old than it was fresh. Once again, these tastings have taught me to never dump my beer (at least not before giving them a couple of years to age). Amazing.

Mouthfeel - Medium body, moderate carbonation. Not as "chewy" as I would have expected given the malt profile. I was expecting something akin to the aged Irish Red. Given the foamy head and the slight tartness, I wonder if there was a bit of a bacterial infection in this bottle, which would also thin it out some. Wish I had thought to take a gravity reading before drinking it all.

Overall - I'm going to sound like a broken record about these old beers, but I'm amazed at how well they have all held up. I had no problem drinking this bottle and wish I had more of it. It's certainly not an American Pale Ale anymore, if it ever was. Not an American Amber either. Given the maltiness and sherry-like flavor, it seems much more 'British' than 'American' at this point. Of course, it might not actually be the beer I think it is - the '?' on the cap and the complete lack of onion off-flavor gives me some doubt, but I cannot think what else it might be. It is different enough from the other aged batches that I have tasted so far and I don't have anything else in my brew log that matches the general specs of this beer. So, I guess I have to conclude that it is indeed my 'Summit APA'. Go figure.

Summit "APA" - original recipe & specs
Partial mash
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.017
SRM: 11.6
IBUs: 36.4

28% Pale Malt
14% Munich Malt
4% Crystal Malt (40L)
2% Roasted Barley
52% Extra Light DME

Summit @ 60 min, 20 min, 8 min, 2 min, & dry hop
Palisades @ 20 min, 8 min, & 2 min
WLP008 East Coast Ale

Sunbeam Kölsch Tasting

I figured a 92°F, humid day was the perfect time to post some tasting notes for my Sunbeam Kölsch (Sonnenstrahl). I brewed this as the companion beer to this year's altbier, using the same yeast, but trying out some Opal hops for the first time.

Appearance - Pretty much crystal clear, yellow-gold with a thin white head that quickly fades.

Aroma - mild, grainy, some fruitiness (not sure if this is from the Opal hops or the yeast).

Flavor - follows the aroma - grainy up front, hint of fruity sweetness and a touch of spice. Bitterness comes through at the end to balance the malt nicely, but doesn't linger. Nice, dry finish makes this extremely easy to drink. I do get a slight touch of astringency towards the end, but it is minor.

Mouthfeel - light body, moderate carbonation (could maybe use a little more).

Overall - perfect beer for a hot and humid summer day, especially after doing some work around the yard. Might actually be my best beer to date from a technical standpoint. It goes down real smooth - in fact, I had to be careful to take my time with this one so I could take some notes. I'm no Kölsch expert, but based on the BJCP description, this could be an award winner. Not sure if I would change anything if I brew this again.

2012 Altbier Tasting

About time I got around to posting some tasting notes from my springtime altbier. Somehow the Spring just rushed past into summer. This is my third attempt at brewing a traditional Düsseldorf Altbier and I think I'm getting close.

Appearance - Clear, orange-brown with a thin, creamy, slightly off-white head that persists while drinking.

Aroma - Mostly grainy malt with a slight touch of spicy fruitiness.

Taste - Solid bitterness that lingers a little before dropping off. Good malt flavors - grainy and nutty. The malt is nicely balanced with some spicy hop flavors. No caramel or noticeable roast, though certainly some grainy sweetness in there. Nice, dry finish. There's also a flavor that I am attributing to the Spalt hops - hard to describe actually - subtly floral maybe, but not perfumy. Overall, for lack of a better descriptor, this beer tastes "German".

Mouthfeel - Creamy head. Light body. Pretty smooth though a touch of lingering astringency. Moderate carbonation. Easy drinker.

Overall - An excellent beer if I do say so myself. As my third attempt at a Düsseldorf Altbier, I think I am slowly dialing in the recipe. My friend and his Düsseldorfer wife give this beer high marks for authenticity. The real test though will be when her father visits sometime in August! Next time, I think I will bump up the IBUs a tad - maybe shoot for 45ish. I also want to try to remove that bit of lingering astringency. I wonder if it was from running a decoction with a mash that was too alkaline (I only recently invested in some ColorpHast strips so I can monitor the mash pH). All in all, this was a very successful beer.