A Brew the Founding Fathers Would Be Proud Of

My wife was out of town the week of July 4, and I worked my usual work hours, 9-6, but took the 4th off for some me time because it was America Day, I hadn't played disc golf since January, and hadn't brewed since May.  I woke up and drove out to Sims Park in Euclid, OH to play a solo game of disc golf.  I almost got into a fight with some local idiot who thought it was fine to park his grill exactly in front of the 10 basket.  When I alerted him to this fact and suggested he move 30 feet to the right he responded with an obscenity and threatened my health.  I let him be after reminding him that not only was I ruining his holiday, but he was ruining mine.  My day was overshadowed by this, but I let it go and finished my game.  When I got home I began brewing preparations while I made and ate brunch and finished watching Fight Club from the night before.  Then it was time to brew.  I played The Magnificent Seven on my laptop in the dining room while I brewed, and when that finished I put on The Bridge on the River Kwai; favorite western and war movies to enjoy on America Day while my wife was out of town because she doesn't care for those genres.

American-grown grain and hops, English ale yeast.

So what did I brew on America Day?  An American Pale Ale?  A crappy, rice and corn mashed pilsner?  A bourbon barrel stout?  None of the above, but a single-hop double IPA using a proprietary Hopunion hop; an American craft beer-style super-hopped IPA, bigger and bolder like everything else in the US.  I found the original recipe here, where Hopunion implies that they give a new recipe every month, but this has been up since February 2013.  As I brew in gallon batches I adjusted the original recipe to my needs, and then when I purchased the grains I increased the base 2-Row Pale Malt grains from 2.4 lbs to 3.0 lbs because I wanted to make a stronger beer.  I prepared my recipe the night before so when I went to brew I was ready.  However, I remembered the suggestions from the Beer Craft 1-gallon homebrewing book for turning a pale ale into an IPA, then into a double IPA, so while I mashed the grains I modified my recipe on the fly, increasing the sparge amount and boil time, as well as the hop amounts.

Beer Review: What I've Been Randomly Drinking These Past Months

And now another beer review.  I tend to buy 12-pack samplers or individual bottles because I want to try as many different beers as possible, so in the past 7 months I've had a number of different beers and here I give you my impressions of them.  These cover late fall through spring, and I really got back into porters and stouts this past year, so a majority of these are of those varieties.  I also wanted to brew a Black IPA this summer, which I have, so I tried a few bottles of that variety.  Here's a run down of beer I've been drinking just to share my thoughts on good beer.

I Like My IPA Black as Night

Malt, yeast, hops, hops, hops!  This is an IPA, after all.

It's been two months since I brewed this batch, another five weeks since I've bottled it, and have already tasted two bottles.  Why the wait for this post?  Well, as regular readers know, I am unable to spend a lot of time on this blog, and I recently finished the long-in-waiting post on Christmas/Winter themed beers, and since that's been waiting for months I wanted to get that out before this one.  But I've just brewed another batch, whose brewing post probably won't be written until after I bottle it in two weeks, so it's time I get this one out.  

This is my first Black IPA, or IBA (Indian black ale).  It's a recipe from my friend and college roommate Sean Lewis that is reminiscent of Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale.  It's also the first time I've dry hopped and the first time I ever heard of first wort hopping, and had to do some research to figure out what that is and how to carry it out; this will be covered later.  The recipe Sean gave me was for 5-gallon brewing, as that's his wont, but I'm a 1-gallon brewer, so I took out my trusty slide rule, filled notebooks with advanced calculations, and got a smaller-yeild recipe for my 1-gallon brewing.  I also use dry yeast so what I used is different from his recipe, and made hops substitutions to use what I already had in my freezer.  But that's the glory of homebrewing! You don't have to follow a recipe to the letter and you'll still get beer.  Relax, have a homebrew.

The Beers of Christmas Past

I know that the multitudes of you who read this homebrewing and beer blog of mine have been eagerly awaiting the promised post about all the Christmas and winter themed beers I bought back in November and December to drink and write about.  I took careful notes of each and soon found that drinking a thick, high alcohol, spiced beer every other day or so got tired fast, and so it drug out longer than expected, and then I didn't care to write about them.  But I promised!  And I found a use for a little journal my mother-in-law gave to me for my birthday!  So now I'm going to write this thing and post it so you all can gain from the beer drinking pain I endured.  The Dude Abides.

The first beers I bought for this tasting experience, about 2/3 of the total beers I tried.

Never Be Late for a BBQ

I see that I haven't posted anything since April 2.  That's nearly two months.  When I started this blog I thought I'd post every week, then it became every month, and even that has not necessarily been the case.  I still brew, and still enjoy new beers, and still try to visit breweries and dine at brewpubs.  I still talk to my friend Pete about homebrewing and read as much as I can about techniques new to me and ingredients.  I just haven't bothered to take the time to write about it all.

"Why?" you ask.

I'm busy.  I'm trying to finish my PhD by November.  When I get to the lab I aim to spend most of my time working and the few times I screw around to unwind my head before I dive back into my work I try not to get too distracted by a blog post which will occupy me until it's finished.  But now I'm in a phone meeting starting this blog post instead of paying attention because I'm unable to do the work I've been focusing on today.

So what's this post going to be about?  Brewing!  The title points to a recent batch I brewed on St. Pat's back in March, nearly two months ago.  I won't go through all the detail of the brewing since nothing of note happened (and anything that did has been long forgotten), but will talk about it generally.  I've brewed it, racked it, bottled it, conditioned it, and have tried two bottles.  It's good.  Not my best, but good.

You're Killing Me Smalls!

Fans of one of the best coming-of-age movies produced in the '90s will instantly recognize the title of this post.  Those who don't should navigate away from this blog, somehow get a hold of "The Sandlot," and watch it.  You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish you grew up in the Valley in the 1960s, but most importantly you'll understand the plight of newcomer Scotty Smalls when asked if he wants a s'more.  For those of who will always answer the question, "Do you want s'mores?" with a resounding, "yes please!" then this beer might be the one for you.

Milled malted grains, cocoa nibs, hops, yeast... BEER!

Spicy Beer?! Yes!

So this post's title isn't the punniest I've come up with, but that's ok because the batch of homebrew written about isn't that original.  This is the second time I've repeated a recipe and this time it was because I really enjoyed the beer the first time I brewed it.  The beer in question is a Saison, a continental beer brewed during the winter from the leftovers of the harvest and let condition until the summer.  Saisons are traditionally low in alcohol and light of body and were drunk by the fieldhands during their working hours to quench their thirst and keep them hydrated.  This recipe ups the alcohol content by adding Clear Belgian Candi Sugar and Agave Nectar at the end of the boil.  This additional sugar is more food for the yeast to ferment without adding more body, keeping the beer light but increasing the kick.  And this recipe has another strength: jalapeno!

Hops, Agave Nectar, more hope, yeast, jalapeno, clear Belgian Candi sugar.  All this make a mighty fine brew.

If You've Been Worried About Me...

Worry not!  I haven't fallen into a well, just live a busy life and haven't put time into beer writing.  But I have been beer making since posting last on Feb 7.  Here's what I've been up to:

• The Winter Wheat has been tested and is... alright. I think it's a bit sour, but my neighbor and fellow brewer liked it.  
• The PB & Porter has been tasted with several bottles drunk and is a success!  The mouthfeel has the texture of peanut butter, and the aroma is there, but the flavor doesn't have any PB in it, which is strange but ok.  Overall, I think that beer turned out well and I like it!
• I have a goal to have three different batches of homebrew ready for grilling season starting Memorial Day.  For that I brewed two 1-gal batches back-to-back in two days.  I brewed the Jalapeno Saison again and then a S'Mores Beer the next day, and three weeks later I brewed a BBQ Beer, all of which will have their own posts soon enough.  The first two have fermented and have been bottled, the third is still fermenting.
• I've been planning my next brews and they will both be IPAs.  One will be a black IPA based on a recipe a former roommate gave me that's similar to Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale.  The other will be an IPA that uses only Zythos hops, a Hopunion homemade hop strain, from a recipe found at Hopunion.com.  The first will be brewed sometime in April.

So with the winter winding down, although Cleveland just got hit with a couple inches of snow, I'm looking toward the summer and am even planning for the fall.  Expect two pumpkin beers by Halloween, the porter again and a brown ale this year, and I hope to get a good stout going for next winter.  My beer efforts continue even if I don't dedicate much time to documenting my exploits here.

Until next time friends, happy brewing!

A Hipster in Winter Wheat

Grains (mostly malted wheat this time), hops, yeast, plus water, give us beer!

And again it's been a while since my last brew post.  I've brewed, fermented, racked, settled, and bottled my latest batch, a darker wheat, and now I find time to write about it.  Now the only update will be the first tasting by the end of February.  I used the Brooklyn BrewShop's Winter Wheat recipe, with some slight modifications, of course, and I hope it turns out well.  Fermenting conditions went a bit haywire toward the end so who knows how that affected the batch.

I'll Have a PB&J and a Beer, Minus the J

Happy New Year fair readers!  How were your holidays?  Do anything fun for Christmas and/or New Years?  My wife and I went to Poland, and we came back!  Had a local beer there, Zywiec, which is a lager and so wasn't my favorite, but my foray into beers this past year has taught me to respect the styles I don't normally drink, and I enjoyed tasting a local 1/2-L of cold-fermented gold.  But I'm back now and have some time to spend crafting a post about the batch I brewed back in December, before things got crazy trying to tie things up and prepare for our 10 days in Eastern Europe.

Milled grains, hops, PB, and yeast: Together they form yummy beer!