Phew! Just in time. Out of secondary and into the keg she goes.
Hopefully by the next time I’m back in town, this stuff will be cold and ready to drink!
Author Archives: Brewmaster
Cream Ale in the works
In an attempt to take advantage of a break in the action (my busy schedule), I made a leap and whipped up a version of an American Lager mixed with a Cream Ale. Hopefully I’ll be around to keg it and enjoy it…
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- Cream Ale grain
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- Last bit of Saaz for the drop hop
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- Kettle hard at work
The goal was something outside the standard beer types sitting around the house. Something light. Something cold. And something that could be enjoyed (en masse) on a hot summer day.
HoneyDo Stout: You ask, I deliver
Well, I can never be accused of not listing to my wife. Now if I was only half as good as she was at things…
By request, a stout was built. Oats. Honey. Turn it into liquid. Make it dark and make it yummy. Here’s to making it through the bitter Virginia winter where school closes when it dips below 30. Pathetic. Our Minnesota blood is still boiling at these temperatures. Anyways, I digress.
The beer is finished and now, with a proper label, it can be enjoyed. Cheers!
36 SRM, 59 IBU, 6.1% ABV
Black gold is in the keg
The stout finished up (totally unrelated to our planned holiday travels) today and was jammed into a keg. Instead of force carbing it this time around I opted to prime the keg. I’ve done a few of each now and I think I like the results of the latter method.
The final concoction has two-row, chocolate, Munich, Crystal 60L, black, and oats…. and HONEY! Think of it like a black liquid honey oatmeal raisin cookie without the raisins. Or maybe like Honey Nut Cheerios without the nuts and milk. Here’s the the first pour in the new year!
Double, double.
Diplopia. Look it up kids. While you’re at it look up Foreigner.
This stout will be my first crack at secondary fermentation. Since no bad experiment holds all variables constant, I made sure to dry hop the secondary as well. What the heck right?
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- Dry hopping cascade
I smashed my test tube by accident (not beer related actually) so who knows what the alcohol actually will be. If all goes according to plan this stout should be too dark and too much alcohol to be a stout but that’s the point. Whirly Bird was hoping to drop off something that would warm the soul on a cold winter day.
Poured during its namesake: Novemberfest
The keg was chilled and the tap was set (sounds better than plugged in); Novemberfest made its debut over the Thanksgiving weekend. Nobody immediately spit it out which was good. Most of the patrons at the pub are family so truly honest feedback is can be hard to come by at times. “No that dress doesn’t make you look fat…”
I think the final product had the requisite stuff in it to be called an Oktoberfest/Märzen. A pinch of moss goes a long way and the beer poured clear particularly after it chilled in the keg for a few weeks. Maybe next year this guy will show up a bit earlier. In the interim, this stuff will be used to lubricate the hearts and minds of us here at the brew house as we whip up our next batch of tasty goodness.
11 SRM, 27 IBU, 4.7% ABV
A stout is on the horizon
Look! In the distance… I can see something… something dark and stormy lookin’
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- Whole Chinook
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- Stout Boil
No better way to ring in the Thanksgiving holiday with a bunch of ho-made (wink) pretzels, some beer cheese dip, a glass of Novemberfest, and another 5 gallons of the good stuff. In these busy, tumultuous times remember beer is not the answer. Beer? is the question and the answer is “yes.”
Novemberfest is (quickly) in the keg
Rather than grabbing another ice cold 1.004 FG beer, I opted to pull the plug when the FG hit 1.011. A point low of the style guide but whatever. It’s beer first, a märzen second. Into the keg it goes. A few weeks keg conditioning, a few weeks cooling and carbonating, and she’ll be ready for consumption a full month late.
Novemberfest: the newest of holidays
Happy Oktoberfest Novemberfest! It’s what you celebrate when you miss the required beer birthday (or conception day?) for an Oktoberfest. Grind, mash, boil, hop, cool, and ferment. It’s that easy right? Pilsner, Vienna, Munich, Aromatic, Crystal 20/40, and CaraPils were crushed and put to work with Tett. Old Safale Number 04 is working to make sugar into alcohol as I write this.
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- Novemberfest Grains
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- Tettnanger
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- Novemberfest: Mash
Prost! …in about 6 weeks.
Cold off the tap: Founders Farmhouse Ale
A handful of firsts. First taste of the new beer. First taste of the first Virginia beer assuming you don’t mind that the first taste of the first beer occurred after the first taste of the second beer. Whaaaaaat?
Never you mind. Overall I’m happy with my foray into this new (for me) style. A bit of funk and a bit of sour. Maybe next go we’ll shoot for even more sour. The longer this ale sat in the keg the clearer it got.
6 SRM, 27 IBU, 4.9% ABV were the final numbers that made the label.
