With the end of March approaching, this post is nearly two months late; it's been busy 'round these parts. As you can tell from my general posting output this year, I've been brewing less, due to scarcer time and funds available for the hobby. School and a range of activities outside brewing have kept me more than a little preoccupied over the past twelve months. I'm not planning to get out of it; this is just a period of zymurgical slowdown for me. Fortunately, a spell of late-winter illness has given me some downtime to finally return to the blog. Even at this late date, wrapping up the year still seemed like a good idea: it helps me reflect on what I've accomplished, what I'd like to improve, and how I'd like to plan my resources for what comes next. Without further ado, then, here's a little statistical rundown for (mostly) 2012.
Total posts: 21
Total beers brewed: 16
0.0% - 0 small beers (<1.040)
62.5% - 10 low gravity (1.040-1.055)
12.5% - 2 medium gravity (1.056-1.070)
25.0% - 4 high gravity (>1.070)
A solid trend here for sessionable (if not always textbook "session") beers, though nothing at the very bottom of the scale. Given the small number of brewdays for the year, turning out just a few big beers ended up constituting a significant portion of my overall output.
Colour
12.5% - 2 pale (<7 SRM)
62.5% - 10 amber (7-17 SRM)
25.0% - 4 dark (>17 SRM)
Nothing surprising here; I find it pretty easy to brew right in the middle of the colour scale, from amber to brown. I'm happy I managed to fit in a couple of pale beers; I have plans to work more at this end of things, trying a few more stripped-down, possibly historically-inspired beers in the coming year that may consist solely of pale malt.
National style
50.0% - 8 American
37.5% - 6 English
12.5% - 2 Belgian
0.0% - 0 German
Lots of pale ales and IPAs this year, often with pretty neutral American yeasts. It certainly didn't feel like I'd made so many of them, though that's probably directly related to my success rate below. Still questing after a fine bitter recipe of my own, which contributes significantly to my English output.
37.5% - 6 hoppy
12.5% - 2 malty
12.5% - 2 roasty
12.5% - 2 balanced
12.5% - 2 yeast-derived
6.25% - 1 sour
6.25% - 1 fruit
Yup, lots of pale ales/IPAs. But a good mix of other flavours running through the mix this year; I do like variety.
Brew support
100% solo brewed
While I had visitors stop in during brewdays from time to time, it's been lots of concentrated brew time for me. While I really dig my LHBS here, I haven't met up with any local like-minded brewers with whom I've been inclined to share a wort production event yet. Missing my Chicago brewing compatriots; brew strong, brothers. I have one friend, though, who just moved to the area and is very interested in taking part, so I expect to have more company in the coming months.
Success rate
56.25% - 9 good
31.25% - 5 poor
12.5% - 2 undecided
I'm not sure if it's due to me getting out of practice with more time between brewdays or if I'm just getting sloppy, but my success rate has not been fantastic over the past year. Fortunately my beers brewed in the last few months have all been pretty solid, so hopefully I've turned a corner. The undecided samples include a Burton ale, which I won't even touch for another couple months, maybe not even until a half year from now; and my second Flanders red attempt, which I'm just letting sit for a good long while, though the samples have been very unflattering.
60% - 3 melomels
20% - 2 straight cider/perry
20% - 1 fruit cider
With DeAunn going off gluten last year, meads and ciders have become a new area of interest and excitement for me. The melomels, including my first cyser, have been pretty terrific; the straight cider I made with apples we harvested ourselves was very dry (as expected) but with a great floral apple aroma (big ups to WLP775). Looking forward to messing with honey, fruit, and spices even more coming up.
Non-brewing posts: 5
40% - 2 on hop growing
40% - 2 tastings
20% - 1 on home toasting grain
My "resolution" last year was to do more tastings; I haven't really made the inroads I'd planned there, but I'm going to redouble my efforts. The home-toasted grain posts from the past couple years seem to see a lot of traffic; I hope they help other homebrewers experience the same success with them that I've had.
I have a couple more fermenters full of fermented (or fermenting) goodness on which to report, including a cyser with whole cherries and a rebrew of last year's popular (in these parts) session sour. Stay tuned.
