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.