I have actually had a very productive past few months in regards to brewing. So far, I have brewed five batches on the year, putting my well on pace to meet, if not exceed, my goal of ten batches by the end of the year. Here's a little recap on these beers, as well as a few from the end of last year that I have tasted again recently.
Banana Bread Ale: This was the first beer I brewed on the year, as well as the first recipe I wrote myself. This was also the first brew that I used spices and fruit (bananas) in the brewing process. All in all, I am very satisfied with this beer. The banana flavor didn't come through much at all, but the spices definately came through in the flavor and aroma. I was especially pleased with the body of the base beer - very happy I added some oats and chocolate malt in this one. When this beer was a bit younger, I actually thought the spicing was a bit too strong, but I popped open a bottle about a week ago and was very happy with how it tasted. The spicing mellowed a bit and balanced out nicely.
Blueberry Wheat: This one will probably be going back to the drawing board a bit. Don't get me wrong, it is still a very drinkable beer and is light and refreshing - very nice for the warm weather. However, this was the first attempt at standard american wheat beer with fruit flavoring in the secondary. I ended up deciding to use a can of blueberry puree in the secondary. The blueberry flavor definitely came through but was not too overpowering (which was one concern I had when I brewed this). The body of the beer was very light and had very little head retention and a lot of blue haze from the puree. Still a solid beer, but I would definitely like to improve on it. It's not a style that I am overly concerned with (I see myself only doing one, two at the most, american wheat fruit beers per year), but I would still like to make it better. My next step with this recipe will probably to take out the fruit and nail down a solid wheat beer recipe that I am happy with, then go back to trying the fuit in it again.
Bass Ale Clone (sort of): I say "sort of" because Keith and I did base this recipe off a clone recipe of Bass Ale, but ended up substituting a couple of hop varieties due to lack of availability of the hops at the homebrew shop I went to. All in all, this one came out as a very solid English pale ale. Not quite like bass - was a bit more bitter than Bass due to the difference in hops - but certainly a solid beer. The one thing that I wish we had done, was to put it into a secondary. Unfortunately, Keith and I were a little crunched on time with our busy schedules, and the beer ended up sitting in the primary for a couple weeks. Given our hectic schedules for the few weeks after that, we ended up just putting it into bottles. I know that putting that kind of beer (with no flavor or hop additions in the secondary) into a secondary fermenter is really just to clear up the beer for aesthetic purposes, but I do take a lot of pride in the taste, smell, AND appearance of my beer, so I would have liked to see it a bit clearer. However, overall, I was very pleased with how it came out and have been flying through my supply of it at home. :-)
Batch X (oak aged barley wine with Special B malt): I decided to do something a bit different for my tenth batch and try out a few things. This recipe has been one that I have been working on for awhile now and has evolved quite a bit (I was originally intending this beer to be a big imperial red, but ended up with a barley wine). I was designing this batch to be a pilot half-batch for a full batch that I am going to brew up for later this year (more on that in a few months). I wanted it to be something that can hold up well to age, but not not be too high in alcohol content. As a result, I ended up with a barely wine that is on the lower side of alcohol for this style (a little over 8.5%abv). The grain bill and hop additions are pretty much in line with a typical English barley wine, with a few twists - I added in some Belgian Special B malt to give it some raison flavor, I added 2oz of medium toast American oak cubes in the secondary for two weeks, and I lightly dry-hopped it for about a week. I was very pleased with the samples I got from this beer when I transfered it to the secondary and when I bottled it. I was particularly please with how the oak and Special B flavors were coming through. This brew just hit the two-week mark in its bottle conditioning (meaning it should be fully carbonated) this past weekend. I popped a bottle open on Saturday and was very happy with how this came out - the flavor was just what I was going for (maybe a little light on the oak) and it was very well carbonated with great head retention. It was a little cloudy, but I think that was largely due to the fact that the bottle I grabbed was the last bottle I filled and had a bit more sediment because It was from the bottom of the bottling bucket. We will see how it tastes in the weeks to come, but I am very happy with how this came out. I will probably be doing a full 5gal batch of this in June to condition for a few months. I don't think I will change much with the recipe, aside from leaving it on the oak for a week or two longer to get more oak flavor.
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| Sample from Batch X on the left and some hops before they went into the kettle for my Black IPA on the right. This turned out to be a long day - I bottled the Batch X and brewed the Black IPA in the same day! |
Angry Rhino Ale (Black IPA): One of my favorite beers is Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale/11th Anniversary Ale, which is a Black IPA (or American Style India Dark Ale or Cascadian Dark Ale - whatever you want to call the style). So I figured it was about damn time that I brew a beer of my own in this style. Should be a pretty hefty, hoppy beer, coming in around 10%abv (probably, I forgot to take a gravity reading when I transferred it to the secondary) and about 99 IBUs. I was originally going to do this one a little later in the year, but pulled it ahead for a homebrewing competition with Triumph Brewery and the Preston and Steve Show (a local radio morning show on 93.3 WMMR). I just dry hopped it this past weekend and will bottle it this coming weekend. It should be ready in plenty of time for the competition in about a month. Much more to come on this one!
Tripel Extract Kit: Keith and I brewed a batch of a Tripel extract kit that we got at our local homebrew shop back in the fall that came out very tasty. Keith and I split my last bottle from this batch last Wednesday, and it was a nice treat. This beer definitely stood up to the aging pretty well and was even better (in my opinion) than the earlier bottles.
Ubu Ale Clone: Keith and I also popped open one of my last bottles of the Ubu clone last Wednesday. Similar to the Tripel, this one was awesome! I liked this bottle better than any of the previous bottles that I had drank. The flavors mellowed and blended together very nicely and the malt character came through beautifully.
Ruination Clone: Drank my second to last bottle of this one last night. Although the hop aroma had dimished quite a bit (which is to be expected with a American-style hop-bomb IPA), I was still very impressed with this beer. I still would like to see it more clear, however, considering, I didn't use a primary with this one, it came out awesome! This still remains one of my favorite beers that I have brewed so far. This one will probably find its way into my annual brewing rotation.
In other brewing news, I am entering, not one, but TWO homebrew competitions in the next month. :-) One is a BJCP-sanctioned competition called BUZZ Off, hosted by BUZZ Homebrew Club out in West Chester, PA. I entered three beers into this one - the Banana Bread Ale, the Bass Ale Clone, and Batch X. The other competition was the homebrew competition at Triumph Brewery in Philly that I mentioned earlier. This one is a bit more interesting, because the winner will get $500 cash, Triumph will brew the winner's beer and serve it at the brew pub, and they will enter the recipe in the Great American Beer Festival competition. I entered Angry Rhino Ale in this competition. I'm not sure how I will do in either competition but I see it as a great opportunity to get feedback on my beers from trained professionals with calabrated palates. More on these competitions in the weeks to come!
Finally, I also had a blast at the Brandywine Valley Brewers' Festival in Media, PA on Saturday! This festival is put on every year by Iron Hill in Media. The festival featured about 25 local and regional breweries, as well as a couple local bands. The cloudy weather that we had on Saturday actually made it a perfect day for tasting beers from the local breweries and brew pubs. The stand-out beer for me was Iron Hill's Tripel Sec (their already-awesome Tripel infused with oranges if I am recalling correctly).
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| Taster glass with some delicious local beer from the Brandywine Valley Craft Brewers' Festival. :-) |
That's all for now - hopefully, more to come soon!!
Song of the Day: "Sunshine" by Matt Costa
Beer of the Day: Iron Hill's Tripel Sec
