My recent alt has turned out to be a little too bitter for DeAunn, which means the black IPA is really not her thing. It was time to brew a beer with both spring and her in mind. As she often likes darker beers, I’d thought about doing a brown porter spiced with cinnamon and vanilla (and maybe cacao nibs), but she thought that would best be saved for the fall. Instead, we followed Northern Brewer’s lead and brewed a recipe from their recent Pro Series line of beers from Surly Brewing in the Twin Cities; her pick was Bender, a wonderful American brown ale that we’ve both enjoyed.
I stuck to NB’s recipe with just a few very minor tweaks; the Golden Naked Oats were swapped for oat malt, the flameout hops were reduced to suite DeAunn’s preferences, and the suggested WY1335 British Ale II yeast was subbed for the slurry of WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale I had left from the wheat mild. For this one, I broke into the new sack of Rahr 2-row that we picked up from the NB Milwaukee store on a nice, somewhat spur-of-the-moment trip the Friday before (which also included a lunch buffet at the great Indian restaurant right down the street from NB, visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum, and a tour of the Sprecher brewery).
Brewday was pretty uneventful; I made a late start of it, and the brew ended up feeling a bit more shoehorned into the schedule than I would’ve preferred. Still, I’m looking forward to this beer; I remember when I first tried it three years ago on tap at the Hopleaf, and since then it’s been pretty hard to come by in these parts. Fermentation so far has been very interesting; the 1469 slurry has proven itself to be a heck of a top cropper. After the initial krauesen started to settle, I swirled the carboy to rouse the yeast back into action; the krauesen grew even larger than it had been initially. I’ve done this two or three more times now, with the same effect.
Surly Bender clone
Projected OG: 1.058
Projected SRM: 26.3
Projected IBU: 26.8
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 68%
for 5.2 gallons:
Grain
64.0% - 8 lb 2-row
16.0% - 2 lb Aromatic
6.0% - 12 oz Oat malt
6.0% - 12 oz UK medium crystal
6.0% - 12 oz Special B
2.0% - 4 oz UK chocolate
Hops
.5 oz Willamette (4.7%) (FWH)
.5 oz Columbus (14.5%) (60 min)
1.5 oz Willamette (0 min)
Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale yeast (slurry)
Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)
Brewday: 13 March 2011
Mash-in: 16 qts @ 153 F for 90 minutes
1st sparge: 8 qts @ 190 F
2nd sparge: 9 qts @ 180 F
Pre-boil volume: 6.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 11 P (1.044)
Fermented in basement at ambient (55 F) for 5 days, then moved upstairs to finish out - ambient temp 65 F
Bottled: 3 April 2011
FG: 1.010
ABV: 6.3%
Bottled with 3.9 oz dark brown sugar
