What Homebrew Are You Drinking? January Edition

Helles for round one, 92% barke pils, 4% carahell, 4% carared, 24ibu.

 

Dunkel for round 2.

82% barke Munich, 10% barke pils, 8% Weyermann caramunich II, and 1oz sinamar. 20ibu.

 

Capped off the night with. 96/4 (caramunich II) 35ibu pils. First homebrews in over a week and a half.

 

Just started drinking a hoppy pale ale fermented with Yeast Bay's funktown pale ale blend. 6%. Brewed with pils, oats, carapils and hopped with Cascade, Azacca, and Mosaic. 2 week fermentation.

Bottle conditioned. It came out nice but I think it would have fared much better if it were kegged/force carbonated. Not as funky as I expected, pretty clean but still in a positive way.

 

It's a bit warmer before the freeze, so, started with a Christmas stout, followed by the smoked magik and finishing with the Belgian dark strong on oak. Clearly thawing material.

 

Got my wife an electric Pressure Cooker (like an InstaPot) for Christmas so she has been doing most of the cooking. Last night was Honey Sesame Chicken with Hoisin Veggies. Had my Milk Stout which is rounding out finally after a few months in the keg.

Went back for a second pour.

 

My house Pils. This variant with Mittelfruh and Saaz.

 

Only have one on tap - a West Coast DIPA. Need to rectify that. It's holding up well after a month.

 

Tank 7 clone - little disappointed in this one. The beer itself is fine. My issue is that it really doesn't remind me of Tank 7. Had a strange blind tasting with mine and a Tank 7 (conducted by my friend's wife for me and him). First round was done in coffee mugs and I knew right off the bat which was which. Mine lacked that wonderful hop aroma that Tank 7 gives off. For the second round, we used regular beer glasses and the color through me off. Mine was a lot brighter but I thought mine would have been duller. Of course, with that thought in my head, the taste of the two threw me off.

My clone - Seems to be dominated by the WLP530. It has that typical funky Belgian yeast smell and taste. Dry as expected. Disappointed in the lack of hop aroma and taste. Not even sure I can pick it out. Was looking forward to that Amarillo.
Magnum - 0.2oz 70min
Simcoe - 0.2oz 55min
Amarillo - 2.5oz 5min
Amarillo - 1.0oz WP for about 50min ave temp about 130F
Amarillo - 1.0oz dry hop 7 days

Tank 7 - Had more malt backbone and also a nice peppery and floral aroma. Almost cinnamon.

The color interests me. My photo doesn't really show it but mine is a bright straw yellow whereas Tank 7 has a bit more of golden hue to it. I wonder why that is. I didn't think the malt bill was a mystery for this one:
78% - 2-row brewer's malt
20% - flaked corn
2% - white wheat malt

 

My best IPA so far. Was listening to an interview with Sam Calagione and was preparing to brew a Amarillo/Simcoe IPA so naturally I adjusted/spaced the hops out to be added every 10 minutes throughout the boil. Turned out fantastic. Just the right amount of bittering to aroma.

 

Blonde mama blonde ale with the new coaster to match. Super crisp, slightly breast with some slight hop aroma and character. K97 kolsch yeast works well. Cheers and go USA !

 

Princeman's brother IPA. Sloop juice bomb clone 2 row, flaked wheat so4 yeast DDH with citra, Simcoe and Amarillo. 6.5%. 1:1 so4/cl approx 150ppm each. Intense mango, pineapple with a bit of lemon and pine. Light bodied and dry finish. Nice summer IPA for sure

 

Bohemian pils. 4.7%, German Pils, bit of carapils, bit of acid malt. First lager attempt, turned out nice. Has me wanting to brew more for sure.

One thing I notice with this beer is a slight lingering bitterness that probably shouldn’t be there. I suspect it might be from bending the recipe a bit and using high alpha galena to bitter at 60 as I didn’t have enough saaz. Next time sticking to all saaz, maybe a few less ibu’s, see if that makes a difference.

 

Drinking the bitter I packaged last week. It wouldn't score well as a bitter. Guided by Beersmith, I tried to use some roasted barley and pale chocolate to impart some red color. I was pretty careful with my measurements, but I think this can be a tricky thing to do. Whenever I see a color range listed for a particular roasted malt, it is pretty broad, so there can be substantial room for error. Anyhow, it came out somewhat darker than I wanted and with a slight roasted bite. It's delicious, but not a bitter. Call it a mild?

 

Straight up Bourbon Imperial Stout

 

Contrary to the title, today I'll start by sharing what homebrew I'm NOT drinking. The dreaded foe that I've successfully avoided for almost a year finally came knocking -- behold the Bottle-Bomb:


It was from Batch #4 brewed back in June, a blonde ale that I knew had carbonation issues. I was holding onto this one to try it on it's birthday, to see what would happen (besides taste different, of course). I had convinced myself this one was one of the low carbonation bottles, but alas, it appears not to have been. I do wonder why it exploded 6 months later, wondering if a slow-growing infection took hold, but the box I had everything in just smelled like regular old beer. None of the other bottles from the batch showed any signs of a problem. Chalking it up to my inconsistent carbonation early on, whilst keeping my fingers crossed.

At any rate, the rest of the beer in that box took a nice shower today.


That box, by the way, I would highly recommend. Bottle "exploded" in it and (1) nothing leaked, (2) no glass made it out, and (3) only the smallest sliver of plastic was broken off the lid. You can find it here, and they make a number of sizes. Once I can drink away my commercial stash, I'll buy another one of these and stack all my beer nicely and neatly in my closet

 

On a warm, sunny day, nothing hits the spot like a Witbier . . . don't understand why the other pics are all indoors:

 

Ur-Weisse brewed last week . 60% weyermann wheat malt, and 40% weyermann barke Munich (11.1l) 14ibu, spunded to 4 vols.

 

Man yer killing me, so,

With being 0 with 15-25 mph wind, might as well open a m shall stout on nibs , faceplant brown and a Belgian dark strong