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.
Prost! …in about 6 weeks.
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.
The keg is charged and cooled. Time for the first pour of VA!
Beating the farmhouse out by a few weeks, Capitol C IPA has a fantastic nose on it but the mouth-feel tastes… well like it should with a FG of only 1.004 I guess. My untrained first impression is it smells like beer, looks like beer, tastes like beer, but kinda “feels” like water on the way down. Good I guess for a hot summer but I’ll have to examine where things went awry to have a bit more malt in the next batch of IPA I cook up.
Final stats come in at 10 SRM, 69 IBU, and 5.0% ABV
It’s been nice becoming forcefully reacquainted with the many other styles of beer in the world over the past year. I used to have a fridge stocked full of IPAs that would share some real estate with the occasional out-of-towner. However, the relocation of the brewing facilities from West to East Coast means that the copious amounts of IPA aren’t as readily available as they used to be and the ones that are available…. well let’s just say, the East doesn’t do West Coast IPAs. There are some exceptions to that statement but only some.
Ramblings aside, while I have enjoyed drinking styles I neglected for a few years, that empty place in my heart/belly/fridge could only be filled with an IPA. Match. Burner. Boil. Hops. Yeast. An IPA is born. Single hops and lots of them! See you in a few weeks!
The match has been lit and the burner has once again come to life. Pilsner, Vienna, wheat, rye and aciduated malt are well on their way into making a Farmhouse Ale with the help of some hops and some yeast.
The goal is a sour-ish farmhouse (saison) and keg it but we’ll see how everything shakes out.
A Little Nutty Brown Ale is officially available for your drinking pleasure. First bottle was cracked open and looks like it’ll be drinkable. For the 16oz of nuts in the batch it only took on a bit of nut flavor. This was the first time using whirfloc and I’ll admit it does wonders to clear things up. Our Little Nutty Brown Ale has Pale Malt, oats, wheat, Caramel 20/60/80, and some chocolate. Magnum and Tettnag play the role of the hops in this brew. A pinch of brown sugar and a pound of nuts found there way into the batch as well. Dry S-04 was the yeast of the day. Final numbers for our Little Nutty Ale are 4.9% ABV, 32 IBU, 10 SRM.
First all grain brew is complete. We’ll see what sort of success story this turns out to be. No significant hiccups in the brewing process. Pretzels were great, beer didn’t boil over, and the cigar held its ash quite well.
This one features the usual Pale Malt, plus a bit of oats, wheat, Crystal 20/60/80, and a little chocolate. Did I mention it’s a nut brown? Complete with a pound of roasted pecans!