Blonde Ale Tasting

This blonde ale was my first brew in Reno. It's getting a bit old now, but the bottle I opened for tasting had held up exceptionally well. Not all the bottles fared so well; many have suffered from oxidation, pointing to a hole in my process that I need to continue patching. Still, it's important to enjoy the good ones when you come across them.

Date: 18 January 2015

Venue: Our house (Sparks, NV)

Appearance - Really gorgeous yellow-gold. Not quite brilliantly clear. Slight lacing that only lasts a short time.

Smell - Prominent cracker character, with some red fruit (cherry?) in the back. Some mineral.

Taste - Very clean, with a bit of the mineral note coming through. A touch of stone fruit with a warm, crackery finish and aftertaste.

Mouthfeel - Medium thin, not too heavy. Solid carbonation.

Overall - This was a great, easy drinking bottle; it's aged quite gracefully. Every bottle of this beer should be this good!

Rye Saison II

Not entirely happy with how my recent saison with WY3711 came out, I did something out of character for me: a straight-up rebrew with a single change (basically). As I'd blamed my perhaps overzealous use of Amarillo hops for the prominent plasticky quality of the first batch, this batch instead received the more traditional Styrian Goldings for the flavor/aroma component. I also upped the pre-boil volume to finish with a full five gallons, added Irish moss at the end of the boil, and altered the fermentation temp a bit, as noted below.

While the brewday caused no fuss, the fermentation was where things got more exciting for this beer. I brewed this the day before we drove cross country for the holidays, putting it in a water bath with my aquarium heater to keep it in the mid-70s during our two-week trip. Over that time, not only did our car break down twice--both times in Arizona--but a poorly insulated sprinkler pipe in the attic of the house froze and broke, running water through half the house for several hours before the fire department turned it off. And where did it break? Just above the closet in which the saison was fermenting.

Our gracious landlords were very quick to clear out our belongings from the affected areas of the house and had the water evacuated. When we returned, I found the carboy still in the cooler, now drained of water. Miraculously, it was perfectly fine; no evident infection, with the airlock more or less firmly in place. Once the house drying was over and we were able to move back in--it'll be months before repairs are completed--I gave it a few days to let the dust kicked up by the work settle and then bottled this batch. Tasting the hydrometer sample at bottling, I'm afraid that the Amarillo may not have been the culprit in creating the quality I dislike in the first batch; though not exactly the same, it's present in this second batch. I'll do a side-by-side tasting of these saisons shortly.

Update: Given some aging, the plastic note has disappeared from both batches, leaving not one but two very nice saisons. I'll get into it in the tasting notes.


Rye Saison II (The Styrian)


Batch size: 5.3 gallons

Projected OG: 1.062

Projected SRM: 7.3

Projected IBU: 36.5

Boil time: 60 minutes

Brewhouse efficiency: 71%


Grains/Fermentables

60.0% - 6 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna

30.0% - 3 lb Weyermann Rye

10.0% - 1 lb Turbinado (10 min)

Hops

.5 oz Millennium (13.5%) (60 min)

2 oz Styrian Goldings (4.5%?) (10 min)


Yeast

WY3711 French Saison - 1.5L stirplate starter

Extras

1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)

1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water

Profile: Reno

1 g Gypsum

1 g CaCl

1 mL Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 20 December 2014

Mash: 147F for 3 hours

Pre-boil volume: 6.8 gallons

Pre-boil SG (w/o turbinado): 10.4P (1.041)

Chilled to 70F. Aerated for 30 min, pitched 8 hours after KO. Started in water bath @ 55F; raised to ~75F over several hours, left there for fermentation.

Survived the great NYE flood intact. Sat @ ~80F(?) for a few days during cleanup, presumably after active fermentation finished, then moved to 50F garage for a few days prior to bottling.

Bottled: 10 Jan 2015

FG: 1.006

ABV: 7.5%

Bottled w/ 5.2 oz table sugar.

Tasting: 13 May 2015
Success! Turned out clean, spicy, and fruity with a few months of age. Also took first in Belgian ales in a local comp! Will rebrew this fall for a statewide comp.

1st Place, Belgian & French Ales: Great Basin Brew-Off 2015

American Oatmeal Brown

Salt Lake City's Epic Brewing Company (not to be confused with the brewery of the same name in New Zealand) was definitely one of the discovered gems of our three years in Utah. They specialize in high-point (Utah definition: over 4.0% ABV) beers, which state law prohibits from being served on tap. Possibly my favorite beer that they produce is their Santa Cruz Brown Ale, an American brown. This is the beer that brought me back to brown ales. I've often found the style to be overly sweet and unappealing, and a number of years ago had stopped even trying them. This example, as the name implies, takes a West Coast approach. It has the great toasty, malty, chocolatey notes one expects of

brown ales, but balances it with a drier finish and plenty of hop bitterness and aroma.

Looking to create a similar beer myself, I opted to aim a little lower in ABV, shooting for between five and six percent. Vienna was still my base grain on hand, lending more character than straight 2-row. Balancing it were moderate amounts of crystal and chocolate malts; not too much to get cloyingly sweet, but enough to add more malt structure and body. The grist also included a fair portion of oats; I've done this a few times recently and feel like it can add a little extra dimension to the beer. Accompanying this malt bill was a wallop of Amarillo and Centennial, both as a hop steep/whirlpool addition and in the dry hop. The neutral American yeast added a little bit of fruitiness but mostly stayed out of the way of the malt and hop profiles.

As Ron Pattinson might say, this beer goes down a treat. I'm almost completely out now, though I still have a bottle saved for tasting notes. This is the kind of thing I'd consider keeping on hand as my "house beer." I suspect there will be followup batches in the not-too-distant future.

One more thing... I've made another step into joining the twenty-first century social media community by opening an Instagram account. In typical beer nerd(/hipster? I can't conceive of myself as hip) fashion, it's essentially a rundown of beers I'm drinking with quick tasting notes. Lots of sexy shots of our collection of Funkwerks goblets, guaranteed. For those who are interested, here's me: @bier_here.

American Oatmeal Brown

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.054
Projected SRM: 20.2
Projected IBU: ~48.1(whirlpool/steep hops as 15 min)
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 75%

Grains
76.1% - 8 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
9.5% - 1 lb Flaked Oats
4.8% - .5 lb C40
4.8% - .5 lb C60
4.8% - .5 lb American Chocolate

Hops
.5 oz Magnum (13.5%) (60 min)
1 oz Amarillo (8.2%) (0 min) - 30 min steep
1 oz Centennial (11.8%) (0 min) - 30 min steep
2 oz Amarillo (Dry hop - 5 days)
1 oz Centennial (Dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
US-05 (repitch from Summer Farewell Blonde)

Water
Profile: Reno
1 g Gypsum
1 g Epsom salts 1 g CaCl
1 g CaCO3

Brewday: 21 October 2014
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6.9 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 11.2P (1.045)
Fermented in swamp cooler at 64-66F.

Active fermentation done after about 5 days. Bumped up to 70F & swirled to make sure it completes any unfinished business.

Secondary: 6 November 2014
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.5%

Bottled: 11 November 2014
Bottled with 4.6 oz of brown sugar.

Tasting: 16 February 2015
Some pine is present, but as this beer warms a little, the biggest sensory impression I get--other than hoppy--is chocolate covered orange. Fantastic.

5-Year Tasting: Mad Elf Clone

While my parents were in town before Christmas, my father and I split the second-oldest homebrew I still have: the final bottle of my Troeg's Mad Elf clone. This beer at a year old was really spectacular; the alcohol harshness had mellowed, and the cherry character came through beautifully.

Unfortunately the ensuing years and treatment have not been kind to this bottle: at five years old, it had given up the ghost. While I could be disappointed, I'm instead spurred to continue my aging program. In addition, this beer definitely deserves a rebrew; it's a recipe that really shines with some age on it.

=====

Date: 16 December 2014

Venue: Our house (Sparks, NV)

Appearance - Cloudy red-brown. No head; thin lacing around the edges of the glass.

Smell - Sweet cherry, slight alcohol.

Taste - Belgian yeast peppery quality on the back of the tongue, which sits for just a few seconds before disappearing. The cherry from the aroma, which was my favorite element from the last tasting several years ago, doesn't carry through here. Its absence leaves nothing to balance the current tannic roughness and alcohol bitterness that follow the pepper note. The bottom has kind of fallen out, the Belgian yeast character becoming quite harsh.

Mouthfeel - Carbonation is still prickly, showing the bottle has held pressure well. The beer has a certain creaminess.

Overall - Disappointingly, this beer is well past its prime. We couldn't even bring ourselves to finishing the glasses we'd poured. It was a good experiment, though, and definitely worth it.