Central New England Beer Meetup #1

The first Central New England/MA BA meetup and tasting event is only a few days away. We currently have about 7-8 definites and 5-6 more maybes. Should be a great event. Saturday Feb 6th @ 4PM. There may be snow so drive carefully and it's OK if you are a little late. Any questions or issues you can email me at RobotMonkeyBrewery@gmail.com. Here is the current list of beers for the tasting so far:

Lineup (we can choose from the following):
The Abyss '09
Berkshire Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
Victory at Sea
Bells Expedition Stout
Shipyard - Pugsly Porter
Dogfish Head World Wide Stout '05
Dogfish Head World Wide Stout '08
Smokestack Heritage Porter
DarkLord '09
Diamond Brewing Paradise Porter

Possible shows:
Rainwater Oak-Aged Stout
Wachusett's Milk Stout
Dogfather
Barrel Aged Dogfather
B.O.R.I.S.
Barrel Aged B.O.R.I.S.
Bourbon County Stout '09/'08
KBS '09
FBS '09/'08
Speedway Stout
Ten FIDY
Babayaga
And many others from my cellar

Central New England Beer Meetup

Saturday, Feb 6th will be the first Central MA/New England Beer Advocate meetup/tasting event. It will take place at my house (brewery) and open to all BA members or beer drinkers alike. The only stipulation is that you have to contribute. The theme is stouts, so bring some stout, commercial, homebrew, or some good food pairing etc. Let me know if you are coming and what you are bringing. RSVP to jlindros@gmail.com. Hope to see you all there.

Bitches Brew

Forgot to update this brew. Kegged it last weekend, with a FG of 1.020 bringing the abv up to 9.5%. I def tastes boozy and semi sweet. It's also pretty hoppy. It turned out to be a good hybrid of English and American style barleywines. So far it tastes pretty good.

The second half of the batch went into a different Corny Keg and will get oak chips to sit until April when it will be unveiled as the real Bitches Brew in honor of the 40th anniversary of the original album release.

Beer Measurements

Goatmeal Stout
So the FG of the Goatmeal Stout was 1.010, and by my estimations of adding the brown sugar brought it up to 1.061 which would give it an abv of 6.7% before the bourbon/oak infusion. So the bourbon soaked oak chips added a really big bourbon flavor to the beer, and a touch of oak. I don't think it helped that I used Wild Turkey 101 and some Old Weller, which are both strong flavored bourbons. It still tastes great if you like bourbons, which I do, and I'm pretty sure it upped the abv a bit. I wonder how the bourbon flavor will settle with carbonation and age. Being a full 5 gal batch too, this should last me for a while.

Bitches Brew
The brew went well. Started with about 6 gallons or so in the kettle. However, when boiling, I'm assuming do to the high sugar/protein content, it kept boiling over, even before the hops were added. So I had to keep the cover off partway. With the 90min boil, cold weather, and hop absorbtion, I think I lost quite a bit of beer and ended with a 3 gallon batch. I also forgot to add the maple syrup, so the SG was at 1.092 instead of the 1.100. I pitched most of the yeast starter but saved a bit and made another starter to help as the yeast start getting killed off. In order to add the maple syrup and increase the yield, I decided to add 1 gal of water to the secondary, as well as 1 qt of the maple syrup and pitch the second round of yeast. This will give some more kick to the beer and add volume. The color and taste were good to start as well.

Also, I think this is the last brew for the winter. I'll post updates here and there. See you in the spring.

New Brew Planned: Bitches Brew

This Saturday Nov. 28th will be brew #10. For the 10th beer brewed at Robot Monkey Brewery it will be another crazy one. A possible 10% abv Barleywine. The est SG=1.100, with est IBU=57.6. The grain bill on this beast is 18.75lbs for a 5 gal batch! Crossing my fingers to not get a stuck mash. It will also require extra mash and boil time. This new beast of a brew will be called Bitches Brew in honor of 40th anniversary of Miles Davis's crazy awesome album, which was released in April of 1970. When this beer is done in the secondary after a month or so, I will keg half to drink through the winter, and throw the second half in a tertiary fermenter with some oak and "release" that beer in April.

Also on Saturday, I will keg the Goatmeal Stout and get the final measurements etc. A good day for beer.

Goatmeal Stout update

This time was my first attempt with dry yeast, since they were out of the regular. After a week nothing had even started, so I gave up on that and bought a regular Irish ale yeast, and things got kickin! I also decided at that point to make a heavier beer for the winter, so I added 2 lbs of light brown sugar right to the primary fermenter. It was bubbling there for almost 2 weeks! A quick estimate brought the OG up to 1.061, which is a nice start. Friday night I put it into a secondary, just so I could add some oak chips. I measured it to be 1.012 at this point, so a good finish as well. I wonder how the brown sugar in fermenter will affect the flavor. I also soaked a bag of oakchips in bourbon and threw them in, so that should be a nice experiment as well.

I have noticed a theme as well. The beers that I brew with grains from one brew store always seem to have a much lower OG than expected. The color is usually fine, as well as taste. And this specific brew shop, all the specialty grains are crushed on site, but the pale malt comes pre-crushed in big bags. If their crush isn't up to snuff, that would give me a much lower yield. I wonder if this is throwing me off. I'm going to do the same steps next brew with same temps/times, etc, and see how my yield is with grains from the other brew shop.

Speaking of which, this coming Saturday right after Thanksgiving should be the next brew. Not sure what will be brewin, but an announcement should come later.

Goatmeal Stout

So I was bored this weekend, and decided to whip together some beer. I needed something that would hold up to winter, and fill out my kegger for a while. "How about an oatmeal stout," I thought to myself. So here it is. A lighter version. OG was 1.045. Brewing went well, although the color could have been a little darker. It's in the fermenter now. And when I grabbed the ingredients, he only had dry yeast for Irish Ale, so this will be my first experiment with dry yeast. I'll see how it goes.