Category Archives: Brewing

More Haze!

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We got a little thirsty while waiting for the heavy to finish aging. With Cannonball almost gone, we decided to rip another hazy for the tap house.

  • The base
  • The hops

The last hazy we made was such a popular pour, we decided to make a similar version with some tweaks to the hop additions. All the cool guys are going to be there. Citra. Mosaic. Azacca. Just say Azacca again. Azzzzzzaca! We’ll pack some in a bio and we’ll dry hops some others into the fermentor a half dozen times before it gets to the keg. This will be another pounder for sure. Can’t wait!

A Keg of Wee Heavy

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A double dose of Eh-din-bruh Scottish Ale yeast helped make quick work of all the sugars. In the keg our Wee Heavy goes. Unlike many of the Pales, IPAs, and NEIPAs, this little fella is going to rest for some time before we pour the first pint. Four months? Six months? More? Only time (and a taste every now and again) will tell. FG ended up around 1.020 which brings the ABV in around 8.5%.

Gallons of Wee Heavy!

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Winter is coming and we want you to be armed with a pint of Wee Heavy. Tons of malt. Lots of caramel. Plenty of alcohol to keep you warm. With those goals in mind, we lit the burner and churned out what will hopefully be a darn good Wee Heavy in six months.

  • Vorlauf!
  • Cracking the first boil
  • Dark and stormy wort

19 lbs of grain later, we have ourselves a Strong Scotch Ale in the making. Classic Goldings and Tettnanger take the backup role to a biscuit-ty, malt forward base.

Back to Basics

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Azacca. BRU-1. El Dorado. HBC-586. The list of experimental and hot new hops goes on and on. This is a good thing. But you know what else is? The stuff that started it all and never goes out of style. Today we lit the flame and churned out a classic, West Coast DIPA face-melter. A big grain bill that turns into a big ABV glass crammed with a classic hop profile comprised of CTZ, Chinook, and Simcoe. We think it’s going to be big.

This one is going to be huge!

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Due to some recent moves, our hop stash is completely overflowing. First world problems for sure but problems nonetheless. With a pint of Quarantine IPL in hand, we hatched a plan to make an IPA with a whole pound of hops in it. The goal is to make a higher gravity beer that is part face melting IPA and part Hazy NEIPA.

  • Grains ready to work
  • 15 lbs is no match for the mash tun

With some new equipment, we slammed 15 pounds of grain into the mash tun. We took the wort, lit the fire, and started the journey. By the time this pale meets a glass, 16 ounces of Magnum, Citra, Mosaic, Azacca, and Nelson will be in the beer.

Saison Season

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With the lager just sitting around lagering while the taps are running low, it was time for another brew. Since we haven’t make a saison in a while, we decided to get after it. What was going to be a light, peppercorn farmhouse turned into a darker saison due to some COVID required substitutions.

We used a pilsen / pale split base and some Mosaic for bittering, then we layered on some Azacca (mostly because it’s fun to say) to try and get just the right twist of something different.

Regardless of how it turns out, it will still be beer and it will still be ready before our lager.

Getting colder

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Lagers take time apparently! after 3 weeks at 55 degrees, our tropical lager was racked into a secondary and chilled down to 40 degrees. It’ll sit here for far too long according to my impatient opinion but there’s a lot of sitting around going on these days so maybe it’s fitting.

A long way out

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Whirly Bird has long been an ale house. Even our Novemberfest had some ale yeast snuck into the fermenter. Well, today is the day we naively decided to change this. Without much of an understanding on lagering cycle, off we go.

  • The lager mash
  • New equipment

The fire was lit, the pils and Marris Otter were mashed, and things were off to a boil in the new, huge kettle. As the flame died out, that’s when we started piling on the hops. Ounces and ounces and ounces of El Dorado and Mosiac are turning this classic lager into a tropical, hoppy experiment.

First beer of 2020 lives!

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In the keg we go. After a huge dry hop addition of Sabro, everything settled out nicely and tastes great. FG hit the mark at 1.010 so we have ourselves a 5.2% ABV APA about to come under pressure in the cooler and turn into real beer soon.

Happy New Year!

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New year, new beer!

What better way to ring in 2020 with a batch of hoppy APA. The fire was lit around noon and another hoppy creation was concocted. The last NEIPA turned out pretty well so we continued the same tropical hop profile. I think it may turn out a bit cloudy initially with the London Fog WLP but it’ll settle out in a week or so.

  • First look at the color
  • Flame-out and whirlpool additions

The sample of OG soon-to-be-beer sure smells like we didn’t screw it up. See you in a few weeks. Don’t worry, we’ll stuff some Sabro down your throat soon.