What Homebrew Are You Drinking Now? (2022)

Trying out a Brett fermented dandelion mead (clover honey) that I made this past spring. Super floral (surprise!), heavier honey flavor than I expected using such a light honey.

 

Pils.

 

Pils finally cleared up. It was suppose to be just Wyeast 2007 but it was slow so I mixed in WLP-940 Mexican and It's perfect.

 

Witbier. Nice citrus notes with a slight herbal spice. I'm still amazed at how versatile my Nectarine Blossom yeast is. Super dry and crisp in the finish, medium body. Spritzy carbonation dances on the tongue.

 

Loving my dark mild. If memory serves. I didn't brew one of these for over a year, maybe two, but it's really a style I could keep around all the time.

 

I'm certain I've never knowingly had a dark mild but, reading the BJCP style guidelines (13A) and your posts, it seems like something I'd enjoy.

As a point of reference how would y'alls dark milds differ from, or be similar to, the non-dark mild Sweet Josie Brown? (mainly in color, clarity, taste and aroma, without respect to the lower ABV of a dark mild)

 

I’m not familiar with that beer. My recipes for this style typically involve maris otter, one type of English crystal, two types of roasted malt, a bittering addition of fuggles or a close relative, although any mildly aromatic bittering hop might work, and an English yeast. I target the specialty malts probably at less than 7,5% crystal and a total if 7.5% roasted.

The last batch was composed of maris, chocolate rye malt, and golden naked oats, bittered with northern brewer, and used Lallemands ESB yeast. It was 1.032 I think. The next batch will be maris, fawcett pale chocolate, midnight wheat, and muntons c60. Hops undecided but could be willamette, us fuggles, or us tettnang. Yeast will be wheats 1469. I believe it’s targeted at 1.035.

The goal for me is to find something flavorful that satisfies me if I decide for a half pint, pint, or two and doesn’t wreck my sleep.

As for the forumulation, I believe this represents a modern interpretation of the style. I seem to recall our beer history gurus saying historical formulations would not have chocolate malts and would rely more on brewing sugars for color. While I have made these with brewing sugars, I really do like the chocolate malts, so perhaps this is more of watery porter. That's not nearly as appealing as "dark mild."

 

How do you like the Lallemand ESB yeast? In terms of manufacturer descriptions, the difference between it and the other ESB strains (Wyeast 1968, WL002) is that they are described as highly flocculent (I can confirm that the Wyeast strain is highly flocculent, and I've heard the same about the White Labs strain), whereas Lallemand states that its strain has low flocculation. Did you find that to be the case? I ask because if the yeast actually performs like Wyeast 1968, I would be very interested in using it.

 

I usually am a dry yeast user, due to convenience. ESB is neutral and low attenuating. It's a reasonable choice for a beer that you want to with a higher gravity. I believe FG was 1.011 on this beer. IIRC it does not ferment malotriose. I believe it differ from 1968 in this regard. Lallemand Windsor attenuates similarly but produces more esters. I use both for low gravity bitters and milds because of the residual body and malt. I also have used them in higher gravity Old Ale that I've dosed with Brett and aged.

 

How's the flocculation?

 

From Lallemand website:
"Medium attenuation and Low flocculation"

Requires a bit of time.

 

Brewing my ‘MLK’ imperial porter today. Also drinking an American stout that I brewed 2 Oktobers ago and it’s holding up nicely! 6.5% abv, 50ish IBUs. Can’t remember the grain bill exactly but Columbus for bittering and fermented with US-05. This is a recipe I’ve been trying to dial in on for a while now, inspired by Kalamazoo and Obsidian stout. Cheers

 

This makes me think of Wicked Weed’s
Dark Arts. I would love to replicate that beer.

 

This looks/sounds amazing and would love to try something like this. I’ve only brewed one dark mixed ferm beer; It was a dark saison with wlp670, then crooked stave/jolly pumpkin dregs in secondary. Did you perform any sort of cold steep for your dark grains?

 

At what point did you mix it back in with the rest of the fermented beer? Just curious how long you let the 1 gallon go before adding it back.