Winter Black Beerd Tasting

Reviewed 12/11/12

This is an over the topbeer. Not because it is extremely big or small or sweet or bitter, but because it is so damn chocolaty. Like brownies or fudge. It is a totally decent beer under the excessive chocolate, and I like everything going on with it, but it is dominated by the cocoa powder and vanilla. The Notty yeast was an unconventional choice that worked wonderfully at letting the rest of the beer shine through it’s clean fermentation, the golden naked oats are super rad, and the lack of crystal proved to be a smart move. Basically, this is just what I was looking for from the recipe save one major detail: the use of Black Patent malt instead of the intended Black Roasted Barley made for a SUPER mellow roast character. The body is there, the depth and warmth, the rich chocolate, the thick wooly body, all there but not that rich bunt-roast I love in stouts. Oh well, it is still plenty “stout,” and now I know for next time.

Appearance: Totally opaque black/ brown with a roasted marshmallow tan head. Soap-suds like lacing and the head never really falls. Dessert!

Smell: Chocolate. Sweet floral vanilla, some sweet malt and a hint of yeast. The vanilla and chocolate are overpowering, but is that really a bad thing? There is nice roastyness in the background, along with oatmeal graininess and some dark berry notes.

 Taste: Silky smooth palate with a hint of roast, super chocolaty, with an aromatic sweetness from the vanilla in the finish. This is not a sticky or malty beer, but it is very creamy. Basically, it tastes like double chocolate ice cream--You know…the chocolate kind with chocolate chunks and chocolate swirls. Did I say chocolate? It is not boozy, which I think goes well with the velvety body provided by the oats (to me boozy only really compliments beers that have a caramel sweetness which needs to be cut-through). It tastes sweet, but it is not syrupy or sugary. The hops do the trick of balancing by providing a nice resinous counter-point to the creamy sweet body, but I think the ridiculously desert-like personality of this one would be even more over the top if it were virtually hop-less and balanced instead with bitterness from more burnt/roasted malt. Or maybe some coffee.

Mouthfeel: In case you didn’t pick it up from the above, this beer is creamy. Smooth, thick, and creamy. Carbonation is light but foamy (read as: not prickly). Finish is a bit chalky from the cocoa powder and slightly bitter. Minimal residual sweetness.

 

Overall: Surprisingly good for such a silly beer. I like it, and so has everyone else so far. More roast and a ballsier yeast would make it better.

Cuivre Tasting

Reviewed 12/6/12
 

This missed the mark for me. And I was so sure the recipe was right on. There is some weirdness going on between the toasty/ nutty Vienna malt and the earthy/ fruity Belgian yeast. I see now that clean and sweet pilsner malt as the base would have been a much more appropriate choice. I thought that the hint of roast in bigger dark Belgians could be toned down for a smaller dark Belgian by just using a subtly toasty base malt, but no sir. The richness and nuttyniess from the Vienna clashes with the spice from the yeast and hops and the earthy-sweet fruity Belgian yeast instead of complimenting them (I reckon the hint of roast in the bigger “Dark Strong Ales” works because it is exactly that- a HINT of ROASTED grains, not a foundation of toasted grains. Duh.) Not terrible, but only a tiny step towards perfecting my vision of a “Belgian Dark Table Beer.”

 

 

Apparance: Garnet red and crystal clear with a huge and rocky khaki colored head that stays the distance.

 

 

Smell: Weird. Quite aromatic but hard to put a finger on. Some classic Belgian dark-fruit type notes… plum skin and the like. Kelly nailed the strangeness when she called out a distinct “bee pollen” thing going on... I was thinking soil but her descriptor is more accurate. Smells almost tart (it isn’t tart though, no accidental sourness here). It is pretty herbal from the hops and not very spiced, although some biscuty/ baking spice notes are there. As it warms some baking bread starts to show from the rich Vienna malt. Definitely not the cinnamon/ banana/ clove aromas I was expecting from the hops and yeast.

 

 

Taste: Cloves and plum skin with a weird metallic thing in the background. After a quick wave of slightly tart fruit, a nice round bready malt shows through for a sec before it gives way to more earthy hints of that damn bee pollen. Weird beer that I’m not really sure I like. Raisin and some dark sweetness in the finish along with herbal notes from the hops.

 

 

Mouthfeel: Slick and foamy. Alcohol is noticeable but not“warming.” Bitterness is negligible.

 

Overall: Not really what I was going for. I would like to see more of the yeast and some more complex mid-pallet sweetness. Folks drank a lot of it at thanksgiving without complaining, but no one was really stoked on it. For good reason though, this one needs work.

Farmstead Rye

Brew Day 1/12/13

Justine's got an eye

Kelly and I had the honor of bringing our good friends Nicholas and Justine to Sonora for the weekend on our trip up to bottle Pale Rider. They are some of our favorite folks to share good beer with, they have never been shown around the wonderful sierra foothills, and they’re super fun… so what better way to spend a weekend than brewing beer in the snow and enjoying the Hills? I wasn’t sure what Nicholas wanted to brew up , so I put together a grain bill that would work for either a RYE IPA or a rustic Farmhouse Rye and left the yeast and hop selection up to the mood of the weekend. After talking it over on the drive up and weighing the alternative pros/cons  we settled on the Farmhouse. I reckon that given the circumstances the Farmhouse really was the better choice as I wouldn’t be able to make it back up to bottle for 5-6 weeks (too long for a proper hoppy beer in my book). The high 50’s ambient fermentation temp at my Pop’s house right now is WAY under the mid 70s that I would normally use this yeast at, but the cold was the lesser of two evils and will actually be a neat experiment to see how the re-cultured blend of French Saison and Brett C from La Rouge (which turned a corner recently and is becoming quite a nice beer- updated review pending) do in the cold.

This could be called a Saison, or a Saison Brett, but the WY3711 and WLP Brett C yeast “house blend” I made produces some A-typical flavors for a Saison (especially so this time given the  super low fermentation temp) so we’re calling it a “Farmhouse” instead. I’m expecting something yeast-wise more along the lines of a funky Biere De Garde, but way too dry and light to fit that style. Plus, this Biere I will not Garde so…. Yeah ;)

Saisons are up at the top of my list with good IPAs and sours and I don’t have one on rotation right now and I thought it would be fun to show Nick and Justine the ropes with a simple recipe. Plus, I was really excited to use the yeast I blended for La Rouge in a beer more suited to it’s character.

This is one of the first lighter beers that I have made in a while that won’t be heavily hop-forward. The central focus of the recipe is a rustic, easy drinking Saison-like, yeast forward beer. I started with the attributes of the Yeast that I really liked and built on it from there: a heavy hand of Rye Malt in the grain bill along with the traditional bready Pils base to compliment the spicy French yeast while the Brett C adds just a touch of funky depth. I wanted to keep it crisply hoppy without letting the hops shine through in the lead as too floral or fruity (I think that the Citra I used with this yeast last time clashed a bit and took quite a while to mellow out) so I decided to try the Styrian Auroras that I had in the freezer. Spicy Czech Saaz were a close second but lost out to the allure of using a new variety. Hopefully the Auroras provide just the right light and spicy/ herbal bite.

All and all a great weekend-- good food, good company, and good beer.

The Recipe (for 6 gal into fermenter):

Nicholas hard at work

10 lbs Castle Pilsner Malt- 83%
2 lbs Rye Malt - 17%

2 oz Czech Saaz @ 70min

1.5 oz Styrian Aurora @ 15min
1.5 oz Styrian Aurora @ f/o
1 oz Styrian Aurora Dry Hop in primary 1 week prior to bottling (DH total of 7 days)

Pitched 2L starter of “FarmHouse Blend” of WY3711 and WLPBrettC dredges from La Rouge @ 55F with 1 tab Servomicies. Allowed to free rise to ambient in the house. Likely to stay under 65 ‘cuz it’s cold out.
 

Used Sonora Tap H2O with 1.5 g/gal gypsum for pale hoppy water profile.

Mashed at 151F for 60min. and the 152F for 30min.  Mash Out at 168F for 10 min.
NO Sparge
90min boil

Collected 5.5 gal after boil and hop trub removal.

OG: 1.052= 76% efficiency!
FG: 1.004= 6.3% ABV
Calculated SRM: 4
Calculated IBU: Garetz 34, Tinseth 43

1/12- Pitched scarily inactive  yeast and put in tub with a blanket wrap for house ambient.

2/18- Bottled 5.5 gal with 4.25oz table sugar at 57F for target VOL 2.6. FG @1.004. Bitchin. Fruity. Dry.

Pale Rider

Brew Day 12/27/12

I find that I am often wishing my American Pale beers were paler, cleaner, more neutral, more hop forward, more crisp, and more assertive. Essentially, I think I am usually looking for something along the lines of a great German Pilsner, but with more kick. So that is what I made this time around… cut out all of the middle men and made a Pale Ale as an evolution of my favorite bitter Pilsners: Clean and crisp pilsner malt as the only malt, moderate gravity, an “invisible” fermentation profile but with an ale yeast to emphasize the hops and keep the sulfur out of the way, and a big floral/zesty/spicy hop profile but amped up with German and American grown descendants of the euro classics.

Pale Rider Ale (american xtra pale ale): No crystal malts, aggressive gypsum additions for amplified perceived bitterness, very late hop additions, and an ester-free yeast strain make this a pretty stark beer that should be simple enough to let each individual ingredient really shine. I am super excited to see how the recipe comes together. The high sulfate water treatment and no-sparge mash are two firsts in my process, along with the use of the highly recommended Saphir and Horizon hops. I'm also breaking from my usual stradegy of going with 15min, flame out, and dry hop additions and instead just going with a hefty 3oz dose at 10min and a HUGE 6oz DH dose. The idea here is to emphasize the spicy flavors and floral aromas in favor of the frutier, more pungent character that I belive the flame out addition enhances. Hopefully the new no-sparge keeps the minimalist malt bill tasting nice and robust, the high sulfate underlines the hops despite a pretty moderate bitterness level, and the hops ring true to their descriptions of fresh orange zest, bright floral, and noble spice. This one should be good. I think Kel is going to like it.

The Recipe (for 5.5 gal into fermenter):

12 lbs Castle Pilsner Malt-100%

1 oz Horizon @ 70min
1 oz Saphir @ 10min
1oz Horizon @10min
1oz Crystal @10min
3oz Saphir Dry Hop after 1 week in primary (DH total of 7 days)
2oz Horizon Dry Hop after 1 week in primary (DH total of 7 days)
1oz Crystal Dry Hop after 1 week in primary (DH total of 7 days)

Pitched 1 Packet Safale US05 “American Ale” Dry yeast and .5 pkt Nottingham (to help with clean up given it's ability to put in work at low temps) @ 60F with .5 tab Servomicies. Allowed to free rise to ambient high 60 in the house. Will most likely stay around 62‘cuz it’s getting cold outside.

Used Sonora Tap H2O with 2 g/gal gypsum for pale/ extra hoppy water profile.

Mashed at 150F for 40min. then up to 158F for 20 min. Mash Out at 168F for 10 min.
NO Sparge
90min boil

Collected 6 gal after boil and hop trub removal.
OG: 1.050= 72% efficiency
FG: 1.011= 5.1% ABV
Calculated SRM: 4
Calculated IBU: Garetz 51, Tinseth 64

12/27- Pitched extra yeast and put in tub with a blanket wrap for house ambient.

1/15/13- Bottled 5.25 gal with .5cups tabel sugar at 58F for target CO2VOLS of 2.4. FG @ 1.011. Hydrometer samples are blonde and taste like orange juice.

2/11/13- Drinking like an orange dream. Pilsner like crispness, sessionable balance. Love it.

Sonorval

Brew Day 11/16/12

American Pale Brett Ale. This is my riff on Orval, which is probably the greatest beer ever. It has inspired so many fantastic “covers”, many of which are up near the top of my list of favorites: Rayon Vert, Brux, probably all the Anchorage beers… For those of you who haven’t had  the pleasure of  partaking in these greats, they are pale, yeast forward,  hoppy, and Brett’d.

I reckon we all essentially have Orval to thank for the beauty of that certain strain of Brett- Brettanomyces Bruxellensis- and its ability to lend its rustic funk to hoppy beers without grating too hard against their herbal bitterness. So good. So farmy. Some folks’ll call the funk “goaty,” “sweaty horse blanket,” or “urinal cake,” especially when it goes wrong, but I’d say “grassy,” “wet hay,” “lemony,” “pear skins,” and “herbal,” are better descriptors of how glorious it can be. I love the way it plays against a simplistic malt bill and lots of hops- Noble or American- and the depth it adds without detracting from a beer’s drinkability. Super complex, super crisp, super refreshing. Some med toast american oak should really spice things up too.

The “vision” for this recipe: Basically this should be the middle ground between Orval and  Rayon Vert. Closer to Orval in size and balance but without the phenolic Belgian primary fermentation profile, and closer to Rayon’s big fruity and piney hop aromatics. The nice Brett complexity will develop in the bottles for a couple of years while the hops fade into oblivion. If all goes well I’ll get a few cases of beer that start relatively clean and hoppy (although some funk is in order) and then transition into a great rustic farmy pale that smoothes out over a few years in the cellar as the hops fade and the Brett matures (if they last that long).

The recipe formulation was easy as pie… nice and clean pilsner malt with a touch of caravienne for color and body, with moderate doses of Centennial for layers of pine and that almost strawberry-like fruityness with some Calypso in the late dry hoping to compliment the lemon/ herbal/ apples/ pears from the Brett, and a relatively neutral yeast strain. Very easy beer to do on brew day. But… what to do with the Brett post brewing to get the beer where I want it? Brett is pretty slow acting, and produces a lot of the great funky flavors it is known for by eating the left over complex sugars that normal brewer’s yeast leave behind after primary fermentation. It is still kind of unpredictable though, and can leave you with a beer with nuances of sheep pee instead of pear skin if things go wrong, so based  on the experiments of a few great bloggers I came up with some strategies that will hopefully help get the beer where I want it:

The Proud Parents

-          Produce a very fermentable beer with a high- attenuating primary strain so that there aren’t a ton of residual sugars for the Brett to eat, thus keeping the Brett profile on the mellower side.

-          Brett’s funky flavors are partially a product of it working on phenolic compounds in the fermented beer, so I’m hoping that by using a clean English yeast instead of a Belgian strain in primary I will limit the source of some of the Brett’ less desirable characteristics

-           Bottle early (in bomb-proof thick bottles, of course) because many sources attribute Orval’s Brett quality to the fact that it develops under pressure and some aromatic by-products can’t escape. Also, oxygen allows Brett to take on a whole new level of harsh funk (like in a great Geuze). Also, this way  the hops can be enjoyed while young and fresh!

-          Brett strains are varied and abundant, but not all that well documents, so instead of rolling the dice with a strain from a lab that may be a propagation of cells that aren’t exactly what I want, I went straight to the source and just pitched the dredges from Orval and Brux into primary with no starter. The idea here is that the WLP007 Dry English Ale yeast would get a big head start to keep the Brett in check. 

This is probably the “riskiest” beer I’ve made, and could go terribly wrong. But, if all goes well I’ll get what I’m looking for and make what has the potential to be a true great.

The Recipe (for 5.5 gal into fermenter):

11.5 lbs Castle Pilsner Malt- 92%
.5 lbs Caravienne- 4%
.5 lbs Table Sugar- 4%

1 oz Nugget @ 30min

2 oz Centennial @ 15min
2 oz Centennial Dry Hop after 1 week in primary (DH total of 7 days)
2 oz Centennial Dry Hop in Secondary 1 week prior to bottling (DH total of 6 days)
2 oz Calypso Dry Hop in Secondary 1 week prior to bottling (DH total of 6 days)
2 oz MED Toast French Oak chips in secondary for 5 days. **the shipping got all F'd up, otherwise I would have gone with just one for more like 2 weeks**

Pitched 4 cup starter (cold crashed) WLP007 “Dry English” ale yeast and dredges from two bottles of Orval and Brux @ 60F with .5 tab Servomicies. Allowed to free rise to ambient high 60 in the house. Will most likely stay around 65 ‘cuz it’s getting cold outside.

Used Sonora Tap H2O with 1.5 g/gal gypsum for pale hoppy water profile.

Mashed at 145F for 45min. and the 152F for 30min.  Mash Out at 168F for 10 min.
Double Batch Sparge
90min boil

Collected 5.5 gal after boil and hop trub removal.

OG: 1.053= 69% efficiency
FG: = 1.008 for ABV~5.9%
Calculated SRM: 5
Calculated IBU: Garetz 42, Tinseth 70

11/16- Pitched yeast and put in tub with a blanket wrap for house ambient.

12/2- Transferred to secondary to get off  yeast and first dry hop addition trub. Added 1oz gelatin.

12/20- Dry Hopped with 2oz each Centennial and Calypso.

12/26- Bottled: 4.5gal into 16oz swing-tops primes with .5c table sugar for target CO2 VOLs 2.5. FG @1.008. Hydrometer samples were pretty wild... bret funk is very grassy and nice, hops are much more floral than expected... like lemon verbena, and something about the combination of the WLP007, Caravienna malt, and French Oak is making for something very candy-like about the base beer. Wow!

1/15/13- Cracked the first bottles over the weekend. Holy cow, very exciting beer. Like a fruity hop flavored hard candy with a great, sublte brett finish. Tasting pending.

2/1/13- First review. This is so good. Hoppy now, but already has some nice Brett development. Aromatic, floral, lemony, apples and pears with some hay and a clean finish. Can't wait to bring 'em to Bellingham. 

Hella! Tasty

Reviewed 11/22/12

It’s been in bottles for quite a while now, and besides being moved in and out of the fridge a few times to make sure I didn’t get any gushers because of the priming sugar mishap, it’s been a tasty last month and a half. I couldn’t really be much happier with the way this one came out.

Appearance: Pale gold with a chill haze and hop oil filter that clears to crystal clear once it has a chance to sit for a bit. Eggshell white head that settles quickly to a thin 1 finger of lacy cream. Next to Celebration Ale it is quite a few shade lighter but shares quite similar clarity and head. **Very happy with the Nottingham yeast’s flocking capabilities! This is the clear beer I have been looking for.**

Smell: This is a very aromatic beer, not hugely complex, but very satisfying. Pineapple juice and sugar pine sap blast right off the bat with pithy tangerine right behind it. Some peppery spice fades into a subtle bready malt behind the citrus fruit and pine needles. Under it all I’m getting a pretty generic “ale” type smell from the yeast, but all and all it is a very clean fermentation. Next to the Celebration Ale I’m having along side it the nose on Hella! is much bigger, with similar woody notes but quite a bit more “sticky”.

Taste: Piney! More complex than the nose. Simcoe hops that stick to your teeth with more than expected pineapple and passion fruit flavors, some peppery spice, and mushroomy earthiness. Clean, minimally sweet malt doesn’t really show through, but serves as a nice medium for all the hop oils. I think it is the Chinook hops giving the spicy and earthy notes that I could almost call out as celery-like. Bitter and crisp with a great prickly hop oil tingle, and almost cheesey in the background (but not in a bad way). Next to the Celebration it is much less malty and much more pithy… Hella! falls on the steamy/ heady side of things while Celebration has that great alpine briskness.  

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied, dry, very bitter, prickly. No boozy heat. Right in line with the Celebration.

Overall: In the dream-land-fantasy-world where I own a bitchin mountain top brewery and spend all my free time on two wheels, this would be my flagship big IPA. Way too hoppy, pale and bitter with a hop aroma and flavor to just plain overwhelm all else with pine, tropical fruit, and spice. The Nottingham yeast is a keeper, but next time I’m going to go a bit bigger on the sulfate treatment for some extra bitterness, and go 2:1:1 Simcoe:Chinook:Citra to step up the complexity in the nose a touch.

EDIT: After drinking this to the end, I think I may just go 1:1 Chinook:Citra and save the Simcoe for a single-hop beer. The Simcoe is so overpowering, I'd like to see some more of the wood from the Chinook and the melon from the Citra... plus Simcoes are still my favorites and I kinda want to make a beer that shows them off as the solo act.

Winter White: Blanche Niege

Brew Day 10/13/12

 

This was the white counterpoint to the Chocolate stout I brewed last time Kel and I were up in Sonora.

As stated in my previous post, the idea is to get a base black and a base white recipe down and brew riffs of each in the summer and winter. I figure Stouts/ Robust Porters and Wit’s both lend themselves to great seasonal drinkers depending on the finer points of the recipes. The Black beard is going to swing between a smooth, smoked honey porter for drinking around the campfire in the summer and a velvety, dry chocolate stout in the winter. The white will be a low-gravity Wit that will swing between something tart and fruity in the summer and spicy and comforting in the winter. Which brings us to our case-in-point: Blanche Niege.

Blanche Niege- (Winter Wit Bier): I’m aiming to hit my “wintery” buttons without making a sipper that drinks like holiday spiced cough syrup. Creamy, spiced, and warming without being hugely sweet, boozy, and malty. I like the thick, full flavor that unmalted wheat and oats gives to Wits without lending much sweetness, and the spicy Hoegaarden yeast character works wonderfully with additional spicing. In the summer I’ll probably go with something crisp like lemongrass and ginger, but this winter I thought that bitter orange peel, grains of paradise, and American toasted Oak would be just right for some hearth-side quaffage. I am fermenting this batch in the mid-high 60’s to encourage more of the earthy/ spicy esters as opposed to the tart and crisp fruity phenols that the yeast produces at higher temps (although this summer, I’ll be all about the mid 70’s). Otherwise, the recipe is a pretty straight forward Barley Malt/ Flaked Wheat/ Rolled Oats low gravity wort with minimal hopping. I went for American 2-row over the traditional Pils for a base malt as I thought saving some extra time on the mash and boil would be worth the swap (and I figured that the waxy/ bready character that Pils brings wouldn’t be missed in this particular beer). My spice additions were pretty conservative. Hopefully they allow for some context in later renditions of the recipe without being so overpowering I won’t be able to tell what is going on.

The Recipe (for 4.5 gal):

4 lbs Briess Organic 2-Row Pale Malt - 44%

4 lb Flaked Wheat - 44%

1 lb Flaked Oats- 11%

1 oz Czech Saaz @ 60min

Pitched 2 viles WLP400 (Hoegaarden strain) @ 65F with .5 tab Servomicies. Made starter with 2cups wort and let it cool overnight. Pitched whole starter the next morning.

Used Sonora Tap H2O with .75 g/gal gypsum for pale/balanced water profile and mash PH.

Mashed at 150F for 120min. Mash Out at 168F for 10 min.
Double Batch Sparge
60min boil

Collected 4.5 gal after boil.

OG: 1.042= 63% efficiency
FG: 1.009= 4.3% ABV
Calculated SRM: 4
Calculated IBU: Garetz 16, Tinseth 16

10/14- Down to 65F after cooling overnight, pitched 16oz starter.

11/16- Bottled 4.2 gal with .5cups table sugar at 50F for target CO2 VOL 3.0. FG 1.009. Hydrometer samples are quite tart!

8/8- Winter White Review. Its OK. Weird, but enjoyable.