Maple Brown Ale

It's that time of year again, Halloween, so I decided to brew up a maple brown ale.  I started with a clone of Bells Best Brown Ale and altered it by adding Maple Extract during my secondary.  It turned out very nice, smooth and delicious.   To quote some friends, "It smelled and tasted like I was drinking breakfast".

To me this is a keeper, another great beer, and one to enjoy by a fire as the weather cools for fall.

Here's a link to brewing a clone of Bell's Best Brown:

http://byo.com/water/item/1034-bell%E2%80%99s-best-brown-ale-clone

Arrogant Bastard Ale

Arrogant Bastard Ale

I was looking for a nice ale to enjoy on the hot day and found this to be an unexpectedly hoppy ale considering it wasn't an IPA/APA, but then it's in a class all on it's own.  Given this, the first taste was a bit overpowering, but as I finished the 22oz I found I really enjoyed it.  

Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout

Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout

Very sweet tasting stout with a strong cappuccino flavor - very delicious, but sometimes a little over the top on the sweet side.  ~1/4 inch head, dark chocolaty look.

Maverick's Amber Ale

Maverick's Amber Ale by Half Moon Bay Brewing Co.

I sampled this little delight from the tap at the brewery while enjoying a burger.  It was listed on the menu as the recommended pairing to their burger.  Perfect!  I couldn't have asked for a better beer to go with a burger and fries on the warm/sunny day at the beach.

Velvet Merlin Oatmeal Stout

Velvet Merlin Oatmeal Stout by Firstone-Walker

A delicious oatmeal stout, with a velvety taste - just as the name suggests.  I really liked this beer and would put it in my top 5 under $10 6-packs.  I actually swapped this in for Guinness during our office St. Patricks day happy hour because the local market didn't have any.  While folks noticed, they didn't complain as this is a delicious alternative.

 

Hop Rod Rye

Hop Rod Rye by Bear Republic

I must admit, I'm really starting to dig the rye-pa style and I wish it wouldnt' be a fall seasonal, but appear more often.

This beer, for me was a great rye beer that I'd put above the par of the Ruthless Rye by Sierra Nevada, one of my first foray's into the rye-pa.  One of the stronger beers at 8% ABV, but very delicious - and what an awesome label.  

Black Racer

Black Racer by Bear Republic

I found this beer to be a dark version of the Racer 5 IPA.  It really tasted like a Racer 5 in terms of hoppiness, but it had the excellent roasted tastes of a dark beer.

Black Xantus Imperial Stout

Black Xantus Imperial Stout by Nectar Ales 

This is a big, full bodied stout that was delicious.  It had all the great flavors one comes to expect from a good barrell aged stout - chocolate, coffee, a little vanilla and yes some bourbon hints.  The head was excellent, not too foamy and not thin, just right.  I really enjoyed this and would definetly have it again.

Racer 5 clone

Racer 5 clone

A friend of mine has been considering brewing and he's a fan of IPA's, so I figured lets go with a fairly standard tasty IPA that most people like.   I invited him over and we drank several IPA's as we brewed and our kids goofed around.   Later when the brew was ready he came back over and we had several cups...  I finished the keg with honors during a neighborhood camping trip.   This is a great IPA and one I'd do again.

FYI - We followed the recipe from Brew magazines 250 Classic Clone Recipes.  

Monk's Blood Clone

Monk's Blood Clone

This is an attempt to clone Monks Blood brewed by 21st Amendment.  I pretty much used the following recipe, with some slight modifications, different yeast strain, swapped out the malts for a pilsner malt and doubled down on the oak.  - https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/monks-blood-clone-extract.  

I conducted a blind tasting, side by side with the original 21st Amendment Monks' Blood vs. this clone and in all cases my buddies chose my beer as their preferred one.  The ladies also loved this, to quote my wife - "This takes like a soda, I could drink this all night!".  At 8.2% I warned her that she'd be floored if she did :)

Mint Chocolate Stout

Mint Chocolate Stout from: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/25377/mint-chocolate-stout

• Not too good.   This beer was overly sweet and took a long time to carb up 3 months.  Once it did, I felt that the 9.5% alcohol content was overpowering as was the mint.  I will not be doing this one again.

Vanilla Oatmeal Cream Stout

Vanilla Oatmeal Cream Stout 

• In this one I started with the recipe from The Good Brewer, but modified it by adding 8oz. of Lactose when I added the extract at the beginning of the boil.  Then during the secondary process I added 8oz of American Oak blocks that had been soaked in a Rye whiskey for 48hrs.

Viennese Spiced Porter

Viennese Spiced Porter from "The Homebrewer's Recipe Guide"

• This was a very delicious brew.  I was a little skeptical that it would turn out at first because it was so heavy that I didn't really see any yeast activity during fermentation.  My panic led to me taking regular gravity's to check on it, but in the end it fermented quite nicely.

Saison Farmhouse Ale

Saison Farmhouse Ale modified from www.tastybrew.com - http://www.tastybrew.com/newrcp/detail/989

• This was a great tasty brew.  I did have to make a substitution on the yeast to use a Fruit Ale Yeast due to my LHBS not having the Wyeast French Saison 3711. 

Honey Steam Ale

Honey Steam Ale from "The Homebrewer's Recipe Guide"

This was a hit!  I shared it with several friends and we polished it off in no time.  I will be making this again!!!!

- Update:  For my sisters wedding I made 15 gallons of this and bottled it for favors....  A big hit, opened and consumed at the reception to the last drop!

Honey Nut Brown

Honey Nut Brown from "The Homebrewer's Recipe Guide"

• Delicious.  A very nice beer that I think will age well.  I drank it at slightly below room temperature and it was great.  I could definitely taste the honey and as a brown ale it had some of that nuttiness flavorings as well.  The head was perfect and the color right on - nice clear amber/brown.

Black Cat Porter

Black Cat Porter recipe from "The Homebrewer's Recipe Guide"

• Very nice beer, decent head with great chocolaty coloring that goes down smooth.  Another win for fall and will most likely be brewing it again or some variation on this.

This was a giveaway to all the Adult trick-or-treaters that came to my door this year.  Everyone gave it compliments...

Dirty Blonde

Blonde Beer recipe from The Good Brewer

• This was a nice mellow lightly colored beer.  Great for a hot summer day or just sitting around socializing.  When I brewed it I left out the Irish Moss so it had a cloudier blonde coloring as such I called it my "Dirty Blonde".

Drow Strong Ale

recipe from The Good Brewer

• A nice dark ale, that's sweet at a young age due to the added sugars/chocolate, but ages quite nicely.  I've found it best served at room temp and that the flavor starts to degenerate if the beer gets too warm, so don't take an hour sipping this guy... though if you're taking an hour to drink a beer, maybe beer's not your thing :)

Santa Cruz Stout

Santa Cruz Stout recipe from The Good Brewer

• This is an espresso stout and is delicious.  As far as stout's go though I'd rather have the vanilla oatmeal noted above.

Nutty Brown

Nutty Brown from "The Homebrewer's Recipe Guide" 

• Delicious brew that turned out great, if a little low on the ABV.  The low ABV was my fault as I pitched the yeast a bit to early, wort wasn't at the right temp - thermometer malfunction.  While the ABV wasn't right, the beer itself turned out great and is something I'll be doing again.  I aged 1 week in the secondary and then kegged, but I'd recommend aging 3 weeks in the secondary as I've noticed that the beer has only improved with age, which I believe is due to the roastiness mellowing and blending better (very overpowered in the early days).  FYI - I did oven roast half of my 2-row prior to milling.

Fat Liar

Fat Liar (Fat Tire clone) modified recipe from www.tastybrew.com

This was a great clone and goes great on a hot afternoon or as something nice, tasty and refreshing to crack open at the end of a long work day.  Without a doubt I'll be brewing this one again.  

I had to modify this one slightly due to my local brew store not having the same yeast selection, but as I noted it turned out awesome.

Good Brewer IPA

My first IPA and my second beer... 

A nice IPA with added aroma hops during the secondary to really bring out the flavor and smell.  

recipe from The Good Brewer

Hop Czar Imperial IPA by Bridgeport

Upon immediate opening I could smell the hops, always a good sign when going for a hoppy beer.  The first taste hits you strong, if you aren't into hoppy beers, however subsequent pulls find the initial flavors quite pleasant with a continued strong hoppy after taste.  By the third pull I was really liking this IPA as the hoppy tastes settled down and my palate opened up to receive them.

My First Beer - Screwy's Vanilla Oatmeal Stout

The first beer I ever brewed was not one of my choosing, but it was very delicious and I repeated it several times.  My loving wife bought me my first brewing kit and when they asked if she wanted a gift card for me to come back and buy ingredients for my first beer, she said - "Are you crazy?  He's gonna make what I want!"; and so she picked me out this very delicious vanilla stout.  I guess I forgot to mention she loves darker beers.

You can find the recipe for Screwy's Vanilla Oatmeal Stout at The Good Brewer

And with my first beer, my label of Irish Hombre was born....

Fall beers - whats your choice?

What should the qualities of a good fall beer have?

Personally as fall approaches I like my beer to be more temperate, a little sweeter and perhaps spicy.  It should be a beer that reminds me of the changing weather and the warmth of sitting by a fireplace that looms in the near future.  With this in mind I typically turn to the toasty beers that aren't quite the heaviness of a winter stout.

Wedded Bliss

My sister asked me if I could make some beer for her wedding that they could use as favor's on the tables, as I loved brewing I thought this would be an awesome idea.  I decided, given it would be a summer wedding, to do a summer like brew.  Not wanting to try something new and potentially have it be horrible for their day, I reviewed my list of beers that I'd done in the past to decided on something that the average person would like (I reviewed it with my wife as she's likes darker beers or lighter less hoppy one's).

Stout Experimentation

Today I'm taking one of the stout recipe's that I love and experimenting with it with the hope it will turn out just as awesome as it sounds in my head....

Here is what I'm doing:

Using as my base I have recipe from The Good Brewer for an Oatmeal Vanilla Stout which I'm planning to turn into an Oatmeal Vanilla Cream Stout.  I'm making 5g, but I plan on separating 1g into it's own secondary and adding bourbon soaked american oak blocks which I'll bottle.  The remaining 4g will be kegged.  With luck I'll have 2 very nice tasting beers where one is just a little "richer" than the other...

I'll keep everyone posted on the results.

Updated - I decided to make the full 5g with the oak blocks.  The batch came out delicious - nice and creamy, not to heavy with a good whiskey like aftertaste.   It is a keeper for sure and something worth drinking on a colder night by the fire.

Building a Keezer

Now that I have a kegging system I decided it was high time I built a unit that could both store and dispense my beer.  I reviewed the options of building a keggerator vs. a keezer and ultimately decided I'd go the keezer route.   Why build a keezer vs. a keggerator?

There are a few reasons I decided on the keezer:

• I really liked the look
• I liked the idea of having better temperature control
• I felt the cost would be lower, while potentially giving me more space
• It's all about the room - the particular space I was putting this in would better fit a lower to the ground form factor (it's not a very tall space).
• I would have the potential for cold storage for lagering.

I built my keezer the typical way as found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHWy_Vlw3J4.

STOPper NO! - Averting Disaster

Today I decided I'd do two brews at once.  My thinking is that one is a cider and simple enough as it's mostly just prep work and the other a lovely porter.  I figured it would be a simple thing to do and while it was easy, a slight mistake was made at the end I just barely averted a disaster :)

Bye Bye Good Brewer

It was a sad day when I heard the news, yes that is correct my friend Daniel has closed up his lovely little shop here in Livermore and the Good Brewer is no more.   With our local shop gone what is a Livermore home brewer to do???

Kegging

It's been awhile since my last post, but seeing as I am brewing up a new beer I figured it was time to update the blog.

Over the holiday's my wife bought me a kegging system, so now I'm upgrading from bottling to kegging.  The only problem is that I have a small "dorm" sized fridge which won't work to keep the kegs cool.  So, I'm on the hunt for a cheap fridge that I can use to store the kegs as well as have some shelving room for bottles. I've been scouring craigslist and freecycle looking for the fridge.  There are options available on craigslist, but nothing that I quite want - side by side, large ones, overpriced, etc...  My problem is that I've got a spot in my garage where the fridge will go, so the dimensions have to be right.  I guess I could go buy one....

Carboy up!

Lucky me, for fathers day my wife got me $80 in gift certificates to my local home brew store - www.goodbrewer.com.  So I decided to buckle to the home brewers pressure/"snobbery" and invest in a 6.5g glass carboy for my fermenter to replace  my bucket fermenter, cause you know 50% of the home brewers claim you need to be in glass carboys for the best brewing.  I only bought the fermenter, so I'm still racking to a bucket.  Why, you might ask?  Simple I felt I'd replace one to try it out, while using the balance on my gift certificate to purchase ingredients for a new recipe.

Diving into All Grain Brewing

In my first post, "starting to brew at home", I talked about what my next potential equipment and strategies would be.  Suffice it to say, I did not follow the "plan", but instead dived into trying out all grain brewing.  As I did a my research on the web from google to youtube and the various home brew sites, I started to get an idea of the all grain process and what I would need to get into it.

Wort Chiller - how hard can it be?

Up until now I've been using ice baths to cool my wort, but recently I acquired a wort chiller as a gift, so I decided to use it on my latest batch.  You would think that using a wort chiller would be a simple process of 10-15 min left in boil put your chiller in (mine is an immersion) so it sterilizes.  Once boil complete, turn on the water and watch the temperature drop...   Ha...  Wouldn't you know it I made several rookie mistakes that I will not repeat (lesson learned) and I hope nobody else repeats.

Beer and Weight Management

If you're like me and are a big fan of dark heavy beers then you too are best friends with the inevitable beer gut and spare tire.  I'm sure I'm not alone in saying, it's time to ditch this bad boy and there is no way I'm going to quit brewing or drinking my beers...  

So how does one go about it?

Tap 25

Recently I visited Tap25 in Livermore, CA.  I must say this is a great place to hang out and have some good beer on tap and/or to try out some different beers via their paddles, for the wine lovers out there this is the equivalent of a flight at a wine tasting bar (4 4oz beers).

Starting to brew at home

For my birthday a few years back my wife bought me a home beer brewing kit from The Good Brewer (http://www.goodbrewer.com/), since then I've brewed 3 malt extract beers - an Oatmeal Vanilla Stout, an IPA and a Coffee Stout.  As you can tell I'm quite fond of darker beers and so is my wife.  Since I've started my brewing en-devours there are a few things I've learned...