Charcoal grill brick oven

Our grill for the brick pizza oven found us in the trash today. It's in great shape and is just begging for an increase in thermal mass. CP is working on the simulations. Construction will likely begin this week.

Bottled the Wedding

We bottled two batches today, so I'm down to three more batches to deal with. There's a Belgian strong dark aging in my office, an Apple Brandy Barrel Brew aging in Lansdale, and a saison that needs to be racked in Lansdale. I have hops planted in Williamstown and Maple Shade, too! Forgive my lack of details, but I'll get the malt and grain bills up soon.

The first, "Ball and Chain" is an aptly named beer we originally thought we were going to serve at the wedding, but we ultimately decided that transporting homebrew and having enough time for it to settle and clear would have been a problem. It's a basic pale and crystal base, with some fun going on with the hops; I'll update with the hopping bill later.

The second, "Whatever, I'm Pumping," is a British best bitter, and is an experiment with a dry English ale yeast. There was a mild medicinal note, but I'm not sure if that was from the yeast or not and I bottled it directly from the primary.

T-minus one week!

Oude Geuze Boon Mariage Parfait

It's been a while since the last post, but, alas, these are the consequences of the first year of classes. Things should slow down just a little bit until the fall.

I tried a bottle of geuze I picked up in New Jersey the other week. A geuze is essentially a blend of a lambics, each of different ages. Reading some of the descriptions on Beer Advocate such as "great funky horseblanket/Camambert aromas" can certainly turn a stomach as well as evoke sensations of a compost heap and cooked broccoli, but hell, let's give it a shot.

The color was coppery, with a light shade of orange an just a touch of a cardboard box brown. Its nose was sour, with cheesy, organic, and funky Brett notes. It acquired a more citrus, lemon-zesty quality as it warmed. I'd say the beer was best probably slightly chilled, but not too cold to mask any of the flavors. The palate was light, with a nice sour note, thought not as face-puckering as some other lambics I've tried. Again, some hints of a lemon or lime, negligible to non-existent bitterness, with just some slight hints of malt to remind you that there's actually barley somewhere in the process. Nothing too funky going on in general, though it certainly takes a few tries to not be put off by the flavor of these beers.

This beer is 100% spontaneously fermented, meaning they open the fermenting vessels and hope for the best. I don't think I could get away with this in my dusty, Kitty hair laden basement, though it may be fun to brew one of these this summer, dropping in the dregs of some funky beers over the course of six to eight months and see what happens.

We miss the D's

We miss the D's.

Anchor Brewery Old Foghorn

Oh, what to say about this beer! Bright cherry and copper color. A surprisingly subtle nose given the hopping and gravity rates, but velvety rich with a solid citrus and earty hop (Northern Brewer?) base. Nose also contains hints of dried, dark fruit and fig. Beautiful. The beer itself is full-bodied, with a solid pale malt base. Minute hints of chocolate or toffee, maybe? Deep, almost achey bitterness, like the hops had much, much more to say when the beer was younger but have since settled down. Jason says that they do a wonderful job aging the beer sufficiently before shipping out.

I guess I have to make one of these now, too.

The Brewer's Art Green Peppercorn Tripel

What a nice beer. Standard golden straw color (what a common descriptor this is becoming) with a pretty white, foamy head. Carbonation seems appropriate: lively but not too much. The nose is full, with notes of yeast, malt, and indeed a spicy, almost pepper-like quality. It also resembles many of the other Brewer's Art noses, most notably Ozzy (their Golden Strong Duvel interpretation) and more so Cerberus (their gorgeous tripel). The beer itself is malty and full bodied, finishing rather dry, with that characteristic BA bitterness (lots of Saaz or Hallertauer? Or is it English?). A little extra hop never hurt. Again, there's a lot of similarity of Cerberus, but with a bit of an extra spicy edge. Overall, a fantastic beer; I'd love to try and clone this someday.

Stone Smoked Porter

AMH and I are tasting a Smoked Porter from the Stone Brewing Co. from CA. Near-black in the center, red/brown at the edges. The smokiness is pretty subtle in the nose, but certainly evokes notions of grilled meat. There's also a sweetness that I can't quite describe; it smells dark, chocolatey, and malty, all wonderfully subtle and melded. Mouthfeel is on the fat side, but not so much. Think a mash of around 154-156 deg F. Has a solid malt and hop backbone without being too big, with hints of bacon (!), chocolate, and a layer of something burnt, almost like burnt cherries or something. Overall, a satisfying beer.

I have a couple pounds of smoked malt lying around. Jason and I contemplated a smoked pale ale once upon a time. How does one hop appropriately to complement the gentle smokiness?

Also, first wedding beer is brewing as we speak! A relatively basic pale ale, lot's of pale malt with a shot of some medium crystal. First wort hopped with some oldish Crystal hops, bittered with Simcoe, and slammed with Cascade near the end. Should be a solid pale ale.

Follow-up to "I miss gravity..."

1052-54 was the actual calculated OG using my brewing software; I screwed up. Send this to the homebrew errata!

So it will be a little more hoppy than I would have liked :) Never a bad thing. Could be pretty sweet corked.

Victory Prima Pils

Nice beer. Bright, golden straw color. Amanda describes the nose as chamomile/honey; I agree, though I'd note that it's also bright and floral but mildly yeasty. Tastes of noble hops: earthy, peppery, and a bit spicy. Almost like a hoppy ash tray - and that's a good thing. Probably Saaz or Hallertauer. I'm surprised that the hops don't appear to be in the nose, too. Maybe it's a little old? Malt character is nice. Sufficient body but nothing overpowering, with probably a 98% pilsener malt grist.

A pilsner is certainly due from the brewery, and I've seen it done with a single infusion mash only, no decoction needed (e.g., Jason's recent Elitist pils).

Laptop party

"Jason, darling, plug me in..."

Having a laptop party in CNY right now, drinking coffee, thinking about breakfast, about to go snowshoeing, "ear-lie in the mornin'!"

Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre

Deep reddish-brown, almost cherry-like color. The nose is very rich but soft, with hints of fig and cherry. Tastes fat and malty, grapes/raisiney, dark fruit, almost jam-like, and it's no secret that it's an 8.0% ABV beer.

I miss gravity...

Follow-up from Monday's Strunk and White brew: I hit an OG of only 1054, about 6-8 points shy of where I would've like to have been. Note that I also used a pound of table sugar, so I was expecting something considerably higher. I'm not quite sure why this happens exactly, but when I mash 11 lb and below of malt, I can only acheive an efficiency of 60-65%, as opposed to the clear 70% I get when using any where from 12-15 lb of malt. I still need a few more sample points, having only brewed 14 batches so far, but there definitely seems to be a sweet spot where I really squeeze all that starchy goodness from the malt.

Regardless, the beer is fermenting merrily!

Coincidentally, our German visitors this week lived for a number of years in Heidelberg, the place where my Pisner malt was kilned!

Strunk and White's Hoppy Belgian Pale

I haven't brewed since September and I have some visitors today, so it seems like a great day to brew something nice to celebrate Amanda's new job. This will be sort of a Jason-/Chouffe-inspired Belgian-style pale ale, featuring Simcoe, Columbus, and Cascade hops, and fermented using 1388 (Wyeast Belgian Strong Ale). I'll keep you posted.

In other homebrew news, in a marathon session last week I bottled both "Hon"-ey Pale Ale and Ava's House Bitter. I was terribly delinquent with dealing with both of the beers, but at least I racked the House Bitter; the honey pale sat in the primary since September! If I've learned anything about brewing, it's that beer is generally forgiving and it should turn out ok. Smelled a little funky, though.

Oh, and thanks to the cleverness of house guests, my weird attempt at a red beer got a new name: Dr. Red Socks. Jason calls it an accidental Belgian, since something funky got in there but created something very nice. A fat and malty base, some sourness and dark, figgy fruit in the nose, etc. I've sat this next to Trois Pistole before just to maybe put it in a little context, and I was pleasantly surprised. Note that I don't want to suggest that it was even remotely designed as such, but these nice things happen every once in a while.

On deck before school starts: RSA Simcoe IPA, another Belgian or two, and preparation for the round of wedding beers.