Brewing Weekend 10/12/2012

I hear ya.. Part of me says piss on it. Beer is beer and it's good no matter the occasion.

Dead of winter, a nice hoppy citrusy IPA is great... Middle of summer, hell I like a good bourbon stout on the back porch.

But I find myself tied up in the seasons at times, like.. now.. I'm skipping pumpkin beers this year, I have a maple nut brown that is done and needs kegged, and some cider ready.. I have a breakfast stout, vanilla oatmeal porter, amarillo IPA and a killer Imperial IPA with FF 7C's that is so good I'm thinking about sending it off for comps. I have 2 more kegs empty, so I'm looking for something to fill them soon.

I'm tossing up.. RIS, Wee Heavy Scotch Ale, Milk Stout, or a Saison... the Saison I totally want, but being colder, I'll shoot for a high ABV on it, and some spice. Something dark seems likely though.

 

Trappist ale for the holidays

 

I;m thinking about my second Brett beer. An Ale of some sort. Maybe something a long the lines of a bitter. ~1.050

Gambrinus ESB , Optic , Spelt 2L, and a touch of acid malt. Hop schedule based on OldStocks Brett IPA. I'm pretty sure that I tried this beer and it was very nice.

Wyeast 5526 and 5112. No starter and no aeration.

Well see how it goes. I'm trying to get some aromatic properties without a MO flavor. If that makes any sense.

 

thinking of brewing a simcoe throw together ipa sunday while my bengals kick some cleveland ass. ill be adding bourbon blocks and vaniolla bean to my bourbon ball stout i made for a friends bday

 

Bottling my Two Hearted clone on Sunday, also getting the first taste of my Chimay blue clone when I rack it. I'm opening just my second bottle of my barleywine as an aging/carb test. 5 months in the bottle, i hope it's good.

 

I'm making an American Stout, All-Grain.

 

Brewing my first honey beer on sunday

 

Brewed up a Chocloate Stout last night:

14 pounds 2 row
2 pounds toasted oats
.5 pounds british chocolate malt
.4 pounds US chocolat malt
.5 pounds caramel 60
.25 pounds debittered Belgian Black malt

1 oz Centennial at 60 (31 IBUs)

I am going to add 1 vanilla bean for 7 days at end of primary in hopes of bringing out more chocolate flavor.
Contemplating adding 1oz course crushed coffee for 24 hours before racking to keg. (Old Sock recipe) Just to bring out a slight coffee flavor/aroma.

 

Where are the dry hops man??

 

LOL... I see I forgot something

I guess I will dry hop it when I dry hop my other beer that's in primary. I'll be gone a couple weeks, so both beers will have to wait till I get back.

What should I dry hop a stout with anyway? I have willamette, NB, columbus, chinook, hallertau on hand, and won't be able to get anything else between now and then.

I think because it's an American stout, I should dry hop it.

 

Kinda whatever you'd like. Was half kidding, because in the end its personal preference... BJCP-wise american stouts tend to be hoppy and bitter, with aggressive roasted grain flavor/aroma, so I tend to dry hop mine, aggressively. Willamette and columbus/chinook might be fun. You've got some willamette in your beer, so you could just go simple and drop in some extra as the dry hop.

 

Get the saison gonig now and do the big beer later. The big beers always take a few months to come around anyway. You need something to drink in the meantime. Hell, it's always warm inside and saison is alwasys in style.

 

It's probably gonna be a little chinook and some willamette, because I have plenty of both.

 

Brewing a RIS on Monday, which is technically my weekend. Yeast starter ready to go. Will also be opening a brown porter i brewed a while back on Monday that tastes fantastic.

 

I went ahead and put together a big stout recipe today, to brew in the AM, and bought some saison's at the store.

I don't know why I was stuck in "seasonal" mode, but had a taste for summer beers. Figured it was easier to buy the late season stuff, and just look towards the future.

 

Kegged an ESB and used that yeast to pitch into 11 gal of PA I brewed on Sunday.

I made 7 gal of a Calypso PA and also split off four 1 gal batches using Summer (not Summit), Amarillo, Warrior and Nugget. More or less using a whirlpool method for each. Attempting to find a quick way to 'characterize' hops. Will bottle all of those and sample side by side.

 

We did a hoppy red ale with Nelson-Sauvin and Chinook this saturday, 5-gal, all-grain went very smoothly!

 

Did up a RIS and made a hoppy black ale from the second runnings

 

Ended up bottling two batches yesterday. An English Bitter (which has a lot of green apple :/) and an Oaked Imperial Porter which is tasting awesome.