2015 Year End Reflection

I brewed 12 batches this year, which is the most I've brewed in 4 years. I also did some blending of a 2013 sour batch, so I suppose I could say I made a personal best of 14 batches of beer?

I bought several ingredient kits this year, taking advantage of some sales that made the kits cheaper than buying the raw ingredients separately. That didn't stop me from brewing my own thing, as I repurposed ingredients from the kits to make completely different beers, in most cases.

I made a delicious Kolsch, my personal beer of the year. This was the first batch I brewed, so it all went downhill from there, right? Well, not so fast. This year saw several firsts in my brew house. My first encounters with nibs, trois, WLP585, and several new malts produced delicious beers. My first experience with NZ hops, on the other hand, was less than stellar. I also had a couple mediocre real Brett experiences (maybe I just don't wait long enough), was challenged a couple times to slay the dicaetyl dragon, and experienced one of my worst nightmares, a valve failure on a keg line that created quite the keezer mess

One final thought: I've been doing this brewing thing fairly regularly for 10 years, and one thing that I've never really done is maintain a well-organized storage space for gear and supplies. I'm not sure "why now," but this is starting to wear on me. Organization was one of my unrealized resolutions from 2014 year-end. This needs to be the year.

 

this was a weird homebrewing year for me. i was a bit spoiled.

i ended up interning at one of my favourite breweries in the world. that taught me a lot about brewing, but, unfortunately, i want to brew on a large system and not a small home system. heh.

i learned some great tips (mainly, fermentation related) overseas, which made me a better (theoretical) brewer.

this year was the first year i committed to water profiles and, man, i feel foolish for not doing this before. it's changed my mash and sparge process completely. just last week, i brewed a porter and decided to add the roasted malt during Vorlauf so i could control the mash pH. it's pretty great to play around with things to maximize the end results.

this coming year, i'll likely be brewing in a brewery 1 day a week AND i may be starting my own brewery within this brewery. a 7 bbl fermentor all for myself. so that's pretty neat.

Brewing IPAs: totally changed my approach, which is cool.

you also realize how much you still have to learn. so many yeasts, hops and malts that i still don't feel 100% comfortable with. something as simple as vienna, munich, trappist, melanoidin malts. still don't love putting them in recipes. i figure that it will take me 5 more years to be fully comfortable with hops and hop selection.

 

Got off to a slow start this year due to moving to Minnesota, but overall I'd chalk this year up as a success.

I got into kegging with a chest freezer and picnic tap setup. It's been awesome compared to bottling. Next step is to slap together a collar sometime this winter.

I went through a couple iterations of adjusting my mash setup, so I was pretty inconsistent all year in hitting my numbers. Oddly enough, the batch that went the closest to planned was a big English Barleywine. I'll be looking to dialing in my brewhouse a bit more over the next several batches.

Also got a grain mill this year, which has helped keep my ingredient costs down. The downside is that I don't really have the space (nor do I brew/drink enough) to keep multiple base grains on hand.

All in all, it's been a good year. In 2016 I'm planning to have my homebrew be a bigger % of my overall consumption which will save me some money and allow me to brew more often.

 

bought or was gifted 4 more fermenters which brings me up to a total of 10.
found out adding too much sugar ruins beers and noted it in the log.
planted more hops and have room for 2 more rhizomes which will bring me to 32 hills. more than enough and nice variety.
Unfortunatly found some organic pesticides do not work so well on 2 spotted spider mites.
was given 67 more grolsh bottles so now i never lack bottles for filling. no idea howmany i have now.
made friends with 2 new home brewers. Great to have local folks to bounce ideas off of.
Got accuainted with another commercial brewer and have great chats with.
Began oaking seriously as in cutting, drying and toasting my own, and am getting the hang of it.
set out more raspberry and blue berry plants so i can continue working on fruited brews.
no drain pours this year. last year 7
used 3 new hop varietys, new to me.
Started logging on to Beer Advocate which has been super. Great bunch of brewers here. Thanks to all for making me feel welcome.

 

Brewed 11 beers so far in 2015, and there'll be one more before the month is out. Of the 10 that I made in 2015 that I've tasted, one was pretty bad and one was meh, but the rest were all somewhere between good and pretty-darn-good. In the last 12 months I've gone all-grain, started using liquid yeast, started paying attention to water chemistry and kegged my first batches. Christmas will bring a stir-plate and a vacuum sealer, so I can finally stop paying through the nose for hops. I've got a lot to learn yet, but I'm making tasty beer and having fun while I'm at it. I think my favorite part has been bringing kegs to peoples' parties - even a mediocre beer goes over pretty well in those circumstances!

 

In my 6 years of homebrewing, this has been my busiest, most successful year (for me..). Next year may be different since there's a kid on the way, but I brewed 9 batches in 2015 – some great, some 'ok'. I explored a few new techniques and new styles that I've never tried before. Soured with lacto for my first time with good results. Started using tap water and balancing water chemistry. Smoked my own malt, which, we'll see how this latest beer turns out before I say this was a success. I also grew enough homegrown hops to use for a centennial IPA.

Aside from having to pour out an entire 14 lb grain bill due to wayy too much carawheat, probably my biggest hurtle was starting to keg. I learned the hard way that it's not just 'plug and play', and that it's most certainly a balancing act. Lost some of my first kegged batch due to foaming and temp control, but it's all good now.

2016 will hopefully be a funkier year. I've got enough clean beer under my belt to finally try a brett beer. Baby steps, man...

 

After my brewday next weekend, I will be at 26 total for the year. I started off the year getting a feel for the different saison strains available commercially by doing consecutive batches of the same recipe using different strains. I have brewed more saisons this year than anything else combined. Lots of brett. Also dove into the world of sours head first and now have 30+ gallons fermenting, leaving next to no closet space in my tiny 1 bedroom apartment. I did a few single hop IPAs to get a feel for a hop on its own and fell in love with Chinook. Entered my first competition and got 2nd in stouts for an Imperial Stout I brewed in 2014.

As far as my process goes, I upgraded to a 15 gallon kettle to do ten gallon batches. Had some issues with flabby and metallic beers this summer so I have resolved to work on tackling water profiles (still a work in progress). Started paying attention to mash pH and my head retention has improved considerably.

2016 will be the year of session ales, honing in on water chemistry, and many more sours and saisons.

 

I started off strong, 10 gallons of APA on 1/1/15 and then 5 different saisons, so approximately 60 gallons of beer by the middle of April. And then kids, travel, work all got in the way and I have brewed once since then, 10 gallons in August. Thankfully, I had quite a bit stockpiled but I am starting to run out of beer

I've got a new covered porch being built and once that is finished, it will be much easier to brew again. I can't wait.

 

Sadly I didn't brew anything. (Traveling has greatly interrupted my brewing lifestyle since I retired. ) But I stayed active in this forum.

 

I've learned many things in 2015.
1) I like hoppy beers best, I knew this already but it was massively reinforced.
1A) Hoppy beers are easiest to brew (for me)
2) I like dark beers , but I don't like 5 gallons of dark beers
3) I'll never brew another sour beer. I don't have the patience and I've dumped several attempts that I hated for one reason or another.
4) I can use Wyeast 1098 for just about everything and the results are great.
5) My tap water makes good beer. Water Chemistry is on the to do list, but I don't feel an extreme need for the aforementioned reason.
6) My wife thinks all my hoppy beers taste the same. She also thinks all hoppy commercial offerings taste like my homebrew.
7) 9 times out of 10 I would rather drink my homebrew than commercial unless it is something I can't effectively make. Barrel Aged and/or sour
8) Extract is a good alternative in a pinch.
9) Fruit Flies are a brewer's worst enemy. Couple of ruined starters and a few stuck in the tap.
10) Brewing is awesome but finding the time is a pain in the ass.

Cheers

 

I on the same page with a lot of your points, including but not limited to:

True. I try to keep something hoppy on tap at all times. Sometimes both taps are hoppy which is fine by me.

I've found brown ales and dark milds to hit the sweet spot of having some of the dark beer flavors without getting overwhelming by gallons 4 and 5. Might be worth a shot if that ship hasn't fully sailed for you.

That's WLP013 for me. Plus 013 attenuates quickly which lets me turn around milds in under two weeks from grain to glass. I did a 3% 8 day'er recently which was pretty cool.

Yep, anything hoppy tastes like soap to my wife

 

a bit of slow year for me, 7 batches total. realizing I need better equipment but an off year at work means that will not happen for a while. I had some big very hoppy IIPA's that were a letdown, a wheat beer that surprised me, and almost dropped five gallons of beer in a glass carboy. I also joined an awesome local home brewers associate called club wart in my home town Palatine IL, and attended a brew in with guys that have been doing it for many more years than I. I have so much to learn, and that only excites me to brew more!

I will celebrate new year's with my fellow brewer, and a drink a bourbon porter we made in November of 2014, we sampled one in June of this year and it was amazing.

 

Stupid auto-correct! It's Club Wort. I joined this year as well and also attended the same brew in of English IPA. It's tasting great. And Kurt, ... "Blackhawk!" - Tom H.

 

Made ten batches at home plus one with the homebrew club I joined this year.

Did three lagers this year with BoPils, Oktoberfest/Schwarzbier, and Maibock (still lagering). I LOVE good lagers.

Instead of just splitting for yeasts as I had been doing, I did two batches where half got cold steeped Carafa (IPA/Black IPA, Oktoberfest/Schwarzbier)

Made my biggest batch yet with 12 gallons of saison. Half with 25% rye and half 100% barley, and then half of each of those co-pitched with Boulevard Saison Brett dregs.

Added a pump and a whirlpool immersion chiller to my set up. So nice to be able to clean while the wort stirs itself.

Aged a barleywine for over a year. Fermented with temp control, and it is so much better than the barleywine I made in 2013.

Participated in a homebrew club brew-in of ~65 gallons of English IPA where 12 people each took home a little over 5 gallons. When I kegged that one, it was the first time my four kegs were filled with beer brewed on four different days.

Made my first batch in winter as an outdoor brewer. Did a barleywine yesterday that will go into a barrel at the LHBS.

And I let my son be lead brewer on two batches this summer.

 

Brewed 27 beers in 2015. Tried several new hops, yeasts and malts. The unfortunate cancellation of the Exotic Fruit Beer Festival due to lack of participation still chafes my hairy buns.

Favorite new to me hops - First Gold and Equinox
Favorite new to me yeast - Omega Where da Funk?
Favorite new to me malt - Breiss Extra Special

The process of brewing is becoming more of a chore than something fun to do. However, consumption is still rewarding!

 

Did you find it to be somewhat like Special B, as I had suggested?

 

I started home brewing for the first time this year as well as my first year growing hops. Totally hooked and hope to brew multiple batches on a monthly basis in 2016. Also, planning on going from just 5 hop bines to around 40 next year. I'm so excited I have trouble sleeping.

 

No Sir. I previously notified you with the proper @pweis909 alert that I used a pound of Extra Special in an ESB and there wasn't even the slightest hint of raisin. A pound of Special B produces a lot of raisin for me. The ES malt was toasty, and relatively dry in flavor and it had a something similar to a toasted coconut aroma.

 

That sounds familiar, now. Maybe someday I'll do a side-by-side to see if I agree.