Brew Updates

The Alpha to Wazoo brewed really well, assistance thanks to Pemmet. We hit our target gravity of 1.071, which is a little above expected. It's fermenting away nicely now. The plan for Wazoo juice was adding 1.5 bottles in the boil (1 at 30min and 1/2 at 5 min), as a similar plan for hops, let some parts boil down, some just hit flame, and I'll then add 1-1.5 bottles into the secondary to flavor to taste.

Jamaica Me Crazy was bottled, and hit a final FG of 1.009, which is good. I was worried about it as it still tasted very sweet when I racked it to the secondary and added the coffee, but now it tastes great. We'll see how the bottle conditioning does. The final abv is about 7.4%.

More brews coming up in the coming weeks. Soon to come: Grey Lady Clone #2 (gonna rename it now that it's not really a clone anymore), Smoked Rauchbier, Tropical IPA, Monster Mash heavy stout.

Brew #13 From Alpha to Wazoo

I promised Dr Gonzo that I would brew up a special beer with some Gonzo product by the next event, which happens on June 13th. So I am limited in time to do so, so decided to brew today. Brewing will commence around 4:30-4:45 when I get home from work. Brewing will be my own design called From Alpha to Wazoo, alpha being alpha acid of lots of hops, and Wazoo being Dr. Gonzo's own Wazoo juice. It'll be a big IPA brewed with Wazoo juice. The Wazoo has lots of ginger, pineapple, citrus, and heat. I've blended it before with commercial IPAs, and it seems to blend well with a big IPA, so this is an experiment to see how it brews with it.

Also, at the same time I'll be bottling the Jamaica Me Crazy Nut Brown #2. So come by if you are free.

National Homebrew Day, Brew #12

So National Homebrew Day was last Saturday, and it included a brew on site day at Strange Brew in Marlborough. I re-brewed the Jamaica Me Crazy Coffee Nut Brown. A couple minor issues occurred, first the stainless ball valve on the mash tun somehow cracked... so I duct-taped it for the time being and caught all the leaky wort and I'll have to replace that before the next brew session. Next the digital thermometer on the same mash tun ran out of battery, so I had to use the manual temp measurement. At the end we brewed a good beer though. It got to 1.065 OG which is pretty good for our shot at 1.070. It's fermenting away now. I'll cold infuse the coffee into the secondary again and bottle condition it. Once done I'll drop a few bottles off at Strange Brew.

I also had some help thanks to Chris Haskell. I'll give him a 6-pack or something of the finished beer too. Next up, bringing the rig to the South Shore Brew Club club brew-off, which we are all sharing the load to brew a 55gal batch of a Kate the Great clone and throw in a commercial 55gal bourbon barrel. Can't wait.

Brew #11 - Pollenized Belgian Pale

So Brew #11 is done fermenting, the Pollenized Belgian Pale. I actually ended up dry hopping it with fresh hops in the secondary, using 1oz of Cascade. It has an awesome hop profile and overall taste, this beer is friggen delicious. It finished at 1.006 so nice and low, dry, but doesn't taste too dry. It also brought the beer up to 6% abv, so pretty much session-able. Not the clarity I wanted, but I think the dry hop and mash profile overall didn't let that really happen, plus Belgian yeast doesn't help. This might be the best beer I've done yet, it is really tasty. Missed my South Shore Brew Club brew off date with this one, but should be able to make it into the Wizard's brew off. I'll have to see how it fares.

Brew #11 - Pollenized Belgian Pale

So last Saturday was the first brew of the new year. A few minor issues to start, like broken hose, lost razor, gunked up tubes, etc. However, nothing major so we were able to brew. The brew itself went pretty well with thanks to Evan. The taste of the grains were completely unsweet, but I still missed my target OG, which should have been 1.052 but was actually 1.042. I did mash a little high, but lowered it halfway through. I'm still leaning towards the grain crush, and I'll be getting a crusher soon so that should solve that issue, or at least eliminate that as a possibility for low yield. I added a little over 1 lb of sugar to the primary, so that should help take care of it and bring it up to 1.051 or so. It's fermenting well for now. More info on the brew to follow, and another one coming up in the next couple weeks hopefully.

Central New England Meetup #2

The meetup went well again, but again the abv of the beers took it's toll quickly and we were limited in the number of samples. Next time we will have lower abv beers.

Photos of the event, thanks to Evan Worona for taking the time to take the quality pictures amid drinking all these awesome beers.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jlindros/CentralNEBAMeetup2#


Here's a summary of the tasting.

BBC Holidale started us off. Boozy with lots of malts, fruits, some chewy malts a slight bitter hop flavor. A little rye adds some more spicy fruit character.

Smuttynose Barleywine was next. This was a hop monster. Hops all over the aroma and palate. Some sweetness and chewy malts. Very bitter, with some pine, citrus, and chewy hops. Some tangerine and orange peel flavors decorate it as well.

Next up was Mikkeller Big Worse. This was also pretty malty and was very sweet, with absolutely no carbonation. More caramel and brown sugar flavors, molasses, and a slight boozy taste and heat, but drinks much easier than 12%. Despite the sweetness it wasn't too syrupy and dried off well on the finish.

White Birch Barrel Aged Barleywine was next, and was very different. It started with a nice head. It was semi sweet, with a nice malt profile, but what made it different was the creamy malt flavor and body. A little oak and vanilla and some bourbon flavors all came out, and it had quite a bit of smoke, which also set this one out. Great beer though.

Then we got into the verticals, starting with the Three Floyds Behemoth. We compared '07, '08, and '09. A lot of parallels to Big Foot, you either like it fresh, or aged. Almost everyone liked it better fresh. The '09 fresh one had a lot of hop character, and pretty bitter, as well as a really nice clarity, some sweet malts, brighter tastes, and some heat and boozy taste. The '08 had much less hop character, more pronounced malty flavors, was pretty hazy, a little lighter on the heat and booze, some chewy malt flavors, and little caramel and brown sugar. The '07 was actually not very tasty. It had no hop characters to speak of, with mostly just a mash of malts and sweet caramels, very hazy and ugly looking, and a distinct dirt flavor, like you get from a pocket of dirt in a potato. Fresh this beer is delicious, but doesn't age as well as I expected.

Next so called vertical was the Great Divide Old Ruffian. Since there is no dating effect on the bottles, there was no way to really tell. But they were both acquired in different years and already aged on the shelves. It had a slight purplish color to it with the dark brown. The supposed younger one had some nice creamy malts, thick chewy malts, brown sugar, molasses, some sweetness, and a slight spicy chewy hop character. The older one seemed to have less of a hop profile, was a little more subtle on the heat, and dulled a little on the malts as well.

We started winding down a bit with more snacks, water, and breaks. But next on the list was Pennichuck Pompier '08. It was also pretty sweet with lots of malts and fruit. Some brown sugar and chewy malts, as well as some roasted and toasty malt flavors. A little spicy hop presence was also there.

Next was a horizontal of Shipyard Pugsley Series Barleywine, with the regular and "aged" versions. It had some sweetness and fruit flavors, raisin, black cherry, tangy, malty, some caramel, a little juicy, and a touch of smoke. The aged one add a lot more maltiness, more subtle flavors, less hop and fruit and blended the flavors a lot more.

Last but not least was the Nøgne Ø Andhrímnir Barley Wine. The malt also shined through in this one, but it wasn't as sweet. A slight spicy hop character with some aged subtle flavors. It had a slight heat but hid the booze well. It also had good carbonation and finished with some smoke, molasses, and a little bitterness.

Thanks again to everyone who came and brought beer or food. We had a lot more beer in line but couldn't get to it as the alcohol got on top of us fast. Next meetup will be in another month or two, and we already decided the theme would be lower abv Belgians, such as goldens, pales, lower abv dubbels or triples, etc.

Season 2, Brew #11

Welp, it's finally here. Spring is in the air, bees and birds are sleeping with whomever they can... know what, that gives me a good idea for the new beer name.

Speaking of which, this Saturday March 20, right before the BA Meetup, will be Brew #11, first of the year. I'll start setting up, sanitizing, cleaning, etc, around 10AM, and hope to start the brewing around 11. The style, Belgian Pale, with some nice hop additions hopefully. I got a bunch of free Celeia hops, a low 2.8% alpha with lots of lemony citrus and floral aromatics. It should work perfectly in a Belgian Pale. I was gonna call it Belgian Pale for lack of creativity at the moment, but now I think I'll call it "Pollenized Belgian Pale".