Beervana

Last Friday night I helped volunteer at Beervana. It was a great time. Lots of great beers, good people, very well organized, and best of all I made out like a bandit with beer. Not only did I get to sample everything I wanted for free (including some very rare beers) I also got to take home about 10 great beers (Duvel, Ommegang, St Fuellien, and more) and I got a growler of Smuttynose Big-A IPA cask and DFH 75min IPA dry hopped with Vanguard. I also got to sample the other two Johnny Cask 75min IPA dry hops which were Warrior and I forgot the third one. I then listed to interesting speeches by Rob Todd of Allagash, and Sam Calagione from DFH. At the end of the night I helped Rob pour his awesome Allagash beers while he did an interview, and then accidentally broke hit tap handle while I was taking it off the keg at the end. He was a great guy and just told me to take it home as a souvenir! I'll def be going back next year.

Ash-hole Hop Stout Finished

Ash-hole hop stout is now in the keggerator, and has been for about a week now. It finished with a FG of 1.013, giving it an abv of 4.2%. It's a pretty low alc but thick taste. It's extremely dark and stout like, some oatmeal taste, but all that is overpowered by the huge hop taste. The nice bitterness of the Warrior hops, and a strong cascade fresh hop taste with some hop spiciness. I think the dry hop may have been a little too much for this one to redo next time.

On a side note, I also put 1.5L of the beer into my little whisky cask to season the cask and that came out with a HUUUUUUUGE whisky and oak overtones. I bottled that yesterday after 2 weeks in the mini cask. I got about 5 bottles that will make an interesting beer.

Ash-hole Hop Stout

So the brew went off pretty well. I tried two new things for water control. First I added an extra gallon to the sparge process, then added another gallon to the boil and ended up with almost 6 gallons, and much lower SG than expected at 1.045 (expected 1.060). Next time I'll try just the extra gallon at sparge.

It's still very dark and ominous looking, and should be pretty good. We almost had an issue with the yeast, as the yeast bag didn't inflate, and the starter didn't really catch until a couple days later. I ended up throwing the yeast in on Wednesday morning after it finally started taking. It seems to be fermenting up well now.

The other small mistake was a little carelessness on my part, when I measured out 2 oz of Warrior hops, and I was supposed to had .5 oz at 30 min, and .5 oz at 5 min, then dry hop with the other oz. Instead I added 1 oz at each step, and I'll still dry hop. This thing is going to be a hop monster!

Brew # 7 is Ash-hole Hop stout Labor Day

Hi All,
Next Monday will be Labor Day, Sept 7th. I actually have a day off from work, so why not spend it brewing beer. Brew #7 the Ash-hole hop stout is officially set for this date, first boil set for 2pm. Hope you can all make it. We will also be filming more scenes for the premiere episode of the brewing show, name yet to be determined. It will cover the brewing process etc.

Bourbon Drunken Irishman

The Champagne yeast seemed to start fermenting but didn't do much. I threw in the oak char from Buffalo trace casks that were soaked in bourbon. Let that sit for a week or so and finally decided to bottle/keg it. When sucking it out of the secondary the cloth that was holding the charred wood chips was sucked into the sucker and ripped open, spilling the chips all over the beer. I also measured a FG of 1.027, or about 9% alcohol BEFORE adding all the bourbon. With that I added some water to bring it down to about 1.020 and produce more product.

At the same time I figured that since the conditions in the beer were too crazy for the yeast to survive, I wouldn't be able to bottle condition it. I decided to keg it and use the keg to carbonate it, then bottle half of it from the keg after it was carbonated, a new experiment. I filtered it through a mesh screen as I poured it into the keg to remove all the oak chips, but lots of very small cloudy particulate got in, giving it a cloudy and charred wood taste. Which I also tasted it, its got a shitton of alcohol, lots of bourbon and charred wood, still pretty sweet, a strong ale like taste, I can't get much rye yet, but it tastes great! Can't wait to try it when it's carbonated tomorrow. I'm estimating that the total alcohol is around 11-12% or so. It's pretty crazy!

Brew # 7?

Perhaps brew #7 will be shortly. I'm looking at Labor day, Monday Sept 6th or possibly this coming weekend (this weekend would be tough). The beer will be called Ash-hole Hop Stout. Its basically an Imperial Oatmeal stout. I'm trying to keep the alcohol down a bit in this one, starting the SG at 1.060, with a couple pounds of oats, plenty of roasted and chocolate malts, and lots of hops at 73IBUs. Bittering hops are Warrior and Columbus, and dry hopped with more Warrior, and Irish Ale yeast to give it a dry, slightly fruity and stouty quality. More details will be posted when they are known.

Bourbon Drunken Irishman

The fermentation had completely stopped for the Scottish ale yeast in the primary, so I moved it to the secondary. And just as I thought, there is too much alcohol and too high a starting gravity for the Scottish Ale yeast to completely ferment. It finished at 1.030 already at 8.5% alcohol and a little more to go. So I added some Champagne yeast and that seems to be fermenting its way towards the finish. If I can catch it in time I will stop it around 1.018 and leave it with a touch of sweetness. The final est alc would be about 10.25% (before adding the bourbon soaked oak chips, which already started). Can't wait to try it.