American Strong Ale

During a stay in Boise a few months ago, some good friends invited me over to harvest Chinooks from their backyard bine. It was pretty late in the season for it, and the hops were a bit past their prime; unfortunately, they were also pretty well infested by aphids. Nevertheless, we had a good time picking sticky hops on a crisp autumn afternoon, and I took home and dried what ended up being about 3.5 ounces.

Well, what to do with Chinooks, a variety with which I have little experience? Take on something in the neighborhood of Tasty McDole's Arrogant Bastard clone attempt! I've been coming back around to Stone's bigger, less hop-focused (than Ruination, IPA, Delicious, etc.) beers, such as Old Guardian and Arrogant Bastard, as the thermometer's been dropping. Uncertain of the potency of the fresh hops, given their age at picking--they only lost half their weight at drying--I supplemented with Cascade and Centennial pellets.

I'm pretty pleased with this small batch, though the bitterness seems very low compared to the IBU estimate. Great classic American maltiness, though. I'm planning to use this recipe as a base for this year's barleywine, just amped up a bit; going to really push the bittering.

Bastardized - riff on CYBI Arrogant Bastard clone

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Projected OG: 1.072
Projected SRM: 15.3
Projected IBU: 83.6
Boil time: 90 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 68%   

Grains
93.6% - 11 lb 2-row
6.4% - 12 oz C150

Hops
.3 oz Millennium (15.6%) (60 min)
1 oz Chinook leaf (6.5% est.) (15 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.9%) (15 min)
.5 oz Centennial (7.6%) (15 min)
1 oz Chinook leaf (10 min)
.5 oz Cascade (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (10 min)
1.5 oz Chinook leaf (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Centennial (5 min)

Yeast
WLP007 Dry English Ale - 1.2-L starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
1/2 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
9 g Gypsum, 3 g CaCl, 2 ml Lactic Acid (88%)

Brewday: 6 November 2016
Mash: 150 F for 3 hours
Pre-boil volume: 6.2 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 13.0P (1.051)

Transferred 4 gallons to fermenter. Fermented in swamp cooler at 66F.

Bottled: 26 November 2016
FG: 1.014
ABV: 7.7%
Bottled 3 gallons with rehydrated US-05 and 2.4 oz brown sugar.
Remaining gallon transferred to secondary with 1 oz home-toasted oak cubes (360F for 3.5 hours, sanitized with boiling water in microwave before adding). Planning to let it age long term and use for future blending.

American Dark Wheat

One of the nice surprises from my summer cross-country trips in recent years has been Thunderhead Brewing in Kearney, Nebraska. I went in the first time not expecting too much, but was very impressed with the beers. The one that made the biggest impact on me was their Cornstalker dark wheat beer: dark in color and a little chocolatey but with a light, easy drinking body. It's built a bit like a dunkelweizen, but with a clean American yeast and American hops. On a hot day, I could go through pint after pint of this stuff.

Though I really wanted to brew something in the Cornstalker vein to have around for the warmer months, this batch didn't make it out until late autumn. It's still pretty damn drinkable in colder weather, though more like a black blonde ale (if you will) than an American dunkelweizen. The Midnight wheat is actually too smooth; only giving off the slightest hint of roast, upon rebrew I'd sub out some of this grain for chocolate malt to achieve more coffee and chocolate notes. It also stayed on the dry hops much longer than originally intended; instead of a real grapefruit punch, the hops come across as herbal. A few tweaks and better planning to put this out in the late spring, and I think it'll really be a winner.

American Dark Wheat

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.046
Projected SRM: 29.1
Projected IBU: 26.4
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 75%   

Grains
54.8% - 5 lb Great Western 2-row
32.9% - 3 lb White Wheat
8.2% - 12 oz Midnight Wheat
4.1% - 6 oz Bairds Dark Crystal

Hops

.3 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)
.5 oz Cascade (5.5%) (30 min)
.5 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (dry hop - 2 days)

Yeast
WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water additions (mash)
4 g Gypsum
1 g Salt
4 g CaCl
1 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 18 September 2016
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.4 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.4P (1.037)

5.5 gallons into fermenter.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 63F ambient.

Water Profile: Reno
Target profile: Balanced Profile (brewersfriend.com)
70.9 Ca, 3.0 Mg, 22.0 Na, 83.7 Cl, 71.4 SO4
Alkalinity 20.6, RA -31.7 (ppm as CaCO3); 5.3 mash pH

Dry hop: 21 September 2016
Added as fermentation slowed, but hadn’t finished completely.

Bottled: 30 October 2016
FG: 1.011
ABV: 4.7%
Bottled with 4 oz light brown sugar.

Sample was fairly neutral. Bottled more than a full month after intended; not a lot of dry hop character, but also not super vegetal, thankfully.

Amarillo IPA Tasting & Recipe

Right after moving to Reno two years ago, I stumbled upon a ridiculous local sale on Amarillo pellets and bought two full pounds of them. While I'd love to purchase in bulk more regularly, my planning skills tend to fail me when it's time to get serious about it. These hops have found their way into a number of beers over the past couple years, but I still had a sizeable cache hanging around this spring.

Rogue's Yellow Snow IPA is the beer that first turned me on to this varietal, probably better than a decade ago now. My sense memory of the beer from that time is of big, bright, fresh mixed citrus, not dominated by old-school grapefruit bitterness or (soon-to-be) new-school overripe tropical fruit character. I decided the best use for the rest of my stores was to make a Yellow Snow-inspired batch.

Rogue freely gives the ingredients for their beer right on the bottle, and between that information and a little more online digging, I put together my recipe. Sadly, it did not come together well for me. The previous beers in which I'd used this batch of Amarillo had tended to have an unpleasant onion/garlic/sweat element, probably from my less-than-perfect packaging/aging techniques. That element was front and center here, coupled with a cloying malt presence from the melanoidin malt. Though well brewed, the end result was tough to choke down.

Though I don't plan to completely remove Amarillo from my hop rotation, I won't be as eager to add it to my full range of hoppy beers in the future. Hoping for better experiences to come that will restore my faith in this hop!

=====

Appearance: Deep amber with orange highlights, quite hazy. Tan-tinged white foam collapses but leaves traces most of the way down the glass as it's drunk.

Smell: Thick taffy-like sweetness, kind of old onion, a hint of orange peel.

Taste: The melanoidin malt is front and center, giving the beer a cloying malt sweetness. The garlic/onion edge of the hops follows up, making for a bizarre flavor combination. A slightly vegetal bitterness helps scoot the beer off the palate, but the garlic/onion lingers in the aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. Carbonation is okay, but not enough to counterbalance the weight of this beer. It seems like the malt character is weighing it down despite its relative dryness.

Overall: Sadly, this one's a dud. The melanoidin malt is overwhelming, and the Amarillo really has none of the citrus-tropical character I used to love. This combination works well for Rogue, but terribly for me.

=====

Amarillo IPA - Rogue Yellow Snow-ish

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.064
Projected SRM: 6.5
Projected IBU: 69.3
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 61%  

Grains
70.5% - 10 lb 11 oz Rahr 2-row
19.7% - 3 lb Weyermann Vienna
6.6% - 1 lb Carafoam
3.3% - 8 oz Melanoidin malt

Hops
.5 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (60 min)
1.5 oz Amarillo (15 min)
2 oz Amarillo (0 min) 30-min steep
3.5 oz Amarillo (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast - 1.5 L starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
Target profile: Light colored and hoppy (brewersfriend.com)
91.1 Ca, 3.0 Mg, 10.0 Na, 46.8 Cl, 144.5 SO4
Alkalinity -39.9, RA -106.6 (ppm as CaCO3); 5.23 mash pH

Brewday: 05 September 2016
Mash: 152F for minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 13.8P (1.0)

Water additions: 9 g Gypsum, 3 g CaCl, 6 ml Lactic acid (88%).

5.75 gallons into fermenter.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 63F ambient.

Dry hop: 11 September 2016
Active fermentation pretty much complete; wanted to add dry hop before cessation of activity.

Bottled: 17 September 2016
FG: 1.010
ABV: 7.1%
Bottled with 3.87 oz table sugar.
Aroma was much brighter at day 2 & 3 of dry hop. Will experiment with shorter contact times in the future.

American Sour Red

Last summer, I brewed a mixed fermentation blonde beer with a collection of propped-up bottle dregs. This year, I continued that tradition with a red beer.

While the rough outline of the recipe follows the Rare Barrel's base red beer, I used Best Mälz's RedX malt for the base to (hopefully) achieve a truly saturated red color. Flaked oats as well as wheat and rye malts joined the party for added malt complexity and mouthfeel. The barest sliver of Galena brings just over 5 IBUs to the batch.

Prior to boiling, I soured the wort with a lacto starter grown up from malt. I've followed this process with great success in the past, but this time around, it failed to produce any noticeable sourness. It may have been the short contact time: having found this method to make a big impact in previous batches, I only gave the starter 8 hours to work before boiling. At this point, however, my dregs culture has produced plenty of acidity, so no harm, no foul. I started this year's batch with Wyeast's French Saison yeast to consume some of the simpler sugars and produce some spicy esters before the Brett and bugs took hold and continued shaping the beer. At transfer, I didn't get any bold saison characteristics, which was in line with my expectations for this yeast's addition: subtle underlying complexity.

Since my 6-gallon carboy was otherwise occupied by mead, this batch spent its two months of primary fermentation in a plastic bucket. At transfer to secondary, the flavor was developing nicely, but might be more acetic than I'd prefer. It has since developed a nice pellicle and is aging happily. While I really enjoyed fruiting much of last year's blonde, most of the fruit I have on hand right now--farmer's market-procured pluots, peaches, and nectarines, all sliced, frozen, and vacuum packed in the freezer--don't strike me as a great pairing for a red beer. I do have some cherries from a year and a half ago, but they haven't been properly sealed and smell suspiciously like the smoked cheese we bought around the same time. This beer might be a good candidate for oaking.

I've planned a dark beer for next year's iteration. I'll still probably go with that, but may brew another blonde in the meantime to use all of the stone fruit I have hanging around right now. I may also start a new dregs culture; in my zeal to start this project, my existing culture received dregs from a few bottles that I'd prefer not to have in the mix. This spring I had a new culture going from a bottle each of Logsdon Farmhouse Cerasus (October 2014) and Cascade Blackcap Raspberry (2015) that was producing a fantastic strawberry character. I ended up adding it to the mix that went into the red, but I'd like to start over with that blend for future mixed fermentation beers. As far as the project overall, though, I don't regret a moment of it.

American Sour Red

Batch size: 5.25 gallons
Projected OG: 1.063
Projected SRM: 15.3
Projected IBU: 5.2
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 62%

Grains
67.2% - 10 lb Best Mälz RedX
13.4% - 2 lb Weyermann Wheat
9.2% - 1 lb 6 oz Flaked oats
6.7% - 1 lb Rye malt
3.4% - 8 oz Aromatic

Hops
.1 oz Galena (16.0%) (60 min)

Yeast
250 ml Lacto starter (sour wort 8 hours)
Sour Cultures No. 1 (1/4 cup), 2, 3
WY3711 French Saison - 1 l starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
Target profile: Balanced (brewersfriend.com)
65.2 Ca, 8.5 Mg, 20.9 Na, 76.5 Cl, 86.7 SO4
Alkalinity 34.0, RA -17.5

Lacto starter: 28 May 2016
25 g DME with 250 ml water & pinch of yeast nutrient, with handful of malt
Kept in bucket with hot tap water & aquarium heater set to max (93F).

Brewday: 16 June 2016
Mash: 18 qts @ 156F for 60 minutes
Sparge: 20 qts @ 190F
Pre-boil volume: 7.2 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 13.2P (1.052)

Water additions (mash): 4 g Gypsum, 2 g Epsom salts, 1 g Salt, 4 g CaCl

Pre-acidified with 7 ml Lactic acid (88%), brought to quick boil, chilled to 115F, pitched Lacto starter. Covered in plastic wrap, kept warm for 8 hours; no noticeable souring took place. Boiled as usual.

Transferred 5.9 gallons at 15.8P to fermenter.
Chilled to 72F (warm ground water), put in swamp cooler at 62F to chill. Fermented in swamp cooler at 68F ambient, ramped to ambient (~75F) after 1 day active fermentation.

Secondary: 17 August 2016
SG: 1.012

Bottled: 1 May 2017
FG: 1.010
ABV: 7.0%
Bottled 4 gallons with 3.8 oz table sugar.
Bottling yeast (US-05) acclimated to the beer’s high gravity 24 hours ahead of time by adding finished beer to the priming solution at a ~1:1 ratio with water.
Moved 1 gallon onto 9.7 oz dried blueberries (rinsed in boiled water, sprayed with Star San) & .5 oz boiled oak cubes.

Hopped Mead

While my wife can't drink beer and wasn't into IPAs even when she still did, she quite likes a hopped cider or mead. Before leaving town this summer, I started a batch of mead to scratch that itch.

The ingredients were, as usual for mead, pretty simple: the remainder of the 24-lb bucket of great Utah honey we purchased last year. I used the TOSNA regimen suggested by Sergio Moutela, owner of Melovino Meadery, on Mead Made Right. I wanted principally fruity hops to go with the floral character of the honey, so opted for Centennial and Mosaic.

The batch came together quickly and easily, but I didn't really see the kind of initial activity I thought I remembered from previous batches of mead. Dummy that I am, I just started hitting it with more yeast and oxygen. It took my local homebrew shop owners encouraging me not to just judge it on appearance for me to actually check the gravity. Indeed, it was fermenting just fine, so I started with the nutrients schedule a few days late and with a bunch of extra oxygen and yeast in the batch. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to have had an adverse effect on the final product.

When we returned from our travels in August, the batch had settled into semi-sweet territory, which suited us just fine. Past batches that have fermented out further have struck me as overly thin and slightly medicinal; this one was fuller, rounder, and still retained a good sense of the honey. The dry hops added a juicy tropical fruit and citrus character that melded well with the honey. This is one of my most successful mead batches, despite some early hiccups in process and judgement. I'll be interested to see how the hop character continues to change and fade into the background as this ages.

Hopped Mead

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.100

Fermentables
13 lb Utah mountain honey

Hops
2 oz Centennial (7.6%) (Dry hop - 3 days)
2 oz Mosaic (11.3%) (Dry hop - 3 days)

Yeast
5 g Lalvin 71B-1122 (rehydrated)

Extras
6.25 g Go-Ferm (yeast rehydration)
25 g Fermaid-O (TOSNA: 6.25 g @ 24, 48, 72 hrs, 7 days after pitching)

Brewed: 31 May 2016
Rehydrate yeast: 125 g boiled water
OG: 24.2P

Boiled water, used some at 160F to liquefy honey. Cooled rest to 68F, filled to 5.5-gallon mark, pitched yeast, put in swamp cooler with 56F water to chill to ferment temp. Swapped out water once & added ice packs to continue chilling.

Fermented in swamp cooler at 62-64F ambient.

3 June 2016: No activity yet. Repeated rehydration with new yeast & Go-Ferm as well as 60 seconds of O2.

7 June 2016: Took a lack of visible activity to mean that the yeast were not working. Took hydrometer reading today: down to 1.085, so some activity is taking place. Initiating TOSNA schedule starting today.

Degassed twice a day for the first week of fermentation.

After the first week, left town for a few days; swamp cooler ambient reached 69F. Upon returning, cooled it back down into 62-64F range and degassed about once a day for the remainder of primary.

14 June 2016: Final Fermaid-O addition.

18 June 2016: Moved out of swamp cooler to sit at ambient (~75F) for the next month and a half. Have continued to degas twice daily up until now.

Secondary: 05 September 2016
FG: 1.012
ABV: 11.7%
Tastes pretty damn good! Residual sugar keeps it from coming across with a lot of cardboard, phenolics, or watery character.
Added 2.5 tsp bentonite dissolved in 1 cups boiled water, held 10 hours.

Dry hopped: 18 September 2016

Bottled: 21 September 2016
Sample had a little more tropical fruit hop flavor, but not a lot of hop aroma.

Session IPA III Tasting

Back from summer travels, it's time to get down to business. Let's start with some long overdue tasting notes. This batch is in its twilight: we're down to the last few bottles, and it's past its peak. I was worried that the final bit had turned entirely for the worst, but the bottle I used for this tasting was still hanging in there.

Appearance: Brilliantly clear gold-orange. Foam hangs around well.

Smell: Floral, red berry and orange, a little caramel. Round and sweet.

Taste: Hops are fading, but good grapefruit and orange notes still come through, along with a touch of dank. Crisp bitterness, warm wheat bread finish.

Mouthfeel: Nice medium body that, consistent from start to finish.

Overall: This was a nice quencher over the summer; it went over well with the folks who tried it as well as with me. Though it’s past its prime now, it’s still drinking well.

Dark Mild Tasting

Happy to get to tasting notes on this beer, which I've been enjoying all summer. I still haven't really connected with this style; it strikes me as somewhere between a blonde ale (light, not overtly hoppy, easy drinking) and an English brown (rich "fruity" English yeast character, chocolate & toffee from roasted & caramel malts). This batch has been much more drinkable than past attempts. My most recent session IPA has been more of a go-to of late, but it's been nice to switch it up regularly by going to the "dark side."

Appearance: Deep brown, ruby highlights when held to the light. The latte-like head lingers for most of the session.

Smell: Toffee dominates, followed by a little burnt caramel.

Taste: Toffee, milk chocolate, hint of coffee, a little peach, a whiff of alcohol on the end. No hops of which to speak.

Mouthfeel: Round, surprisingly full for such a low-gravity beer. A little tickle of carbonation keeps it from overstaying its welcome.

Overall: Though it still strikes me as an odd duck--I haven't tried too many examples to "normalize" my palate to it--it's a solid little fighter. I'm encouraged to keep exploring this style in the future.

Session IPA III

Back for more summer session beer stockpiling. For the third iteration of this recipe, I returned to the original grist, yeast (third generation now for the WY1469), and water treatment, messing with just  the hops a little. I got weird on Simcoe in my first couple years of homebrewing, but now that my once-beloved Amarillo has really changed--at least the ones I've had in the last couple years--it seems only right to return to this first-new-wave "super fruity" hop.

As with the dark mild, I started this batch as a semi-open fermentation, letting it do its first few days of active fermenting with the bucket lid loose and aluminum foil instead of an airlock. The aromas coming from the fermenter have been encouragingly fruity. If it ends up like its predecessors, it won't be hard to enjoy. Bring on the heat of summer.

Session IPA III

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.038
Projected SRM: 6.8
Projected IBU: 57.3
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 67%   

Grains
83.3% - 7.5 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
11.1% - 1 lb Flaked oats
5.6% - .5 lb Belgian Caramunich 80L

Hops
.5 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (10 min)
.5 oz Columbus (15.2%) (10 min)
1 oz Simcoe (12.9%) (0 min) 40-min steep
1 oz Amarillo (0 min) 40-min steep
.5 oz Columbus (0 min) 40-min steep
2 oz Amarillo (dry hop - 6 days)
1 oz Simcoe (dry hop - 6 days)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 3rd generation, harvested from Dark Mild

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
Target profile: Light colored and hoppy (brewersfriend.com)
94.5 Ca, 3 Mg, 10 Na, 48.5 Cl, 150.4 SO4
Alkalinity 8.3, RA -60.8

Brewday: 24 May 2016

Mash: 154F for 60 minutes
No sparge
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 8.3P (1.032)

Water additions (mash): 9 g Gypsum, 3 g CaCl, 2 ml Lactic acid (88%).

5.75 gallons to fermenter at 66F. Fermented in swamp cooler at 64F. Started with fermenter lid loose for semi-open fermentation.

27 May 2016: Sealed fermenter, added airlock, and removed temp control; rose to 70F over the next few days. Agitated (spun fermenter) 2-3 times/day.

31 May 2016: Removed fermenter from swamp cooler; ambient ~75F.

Bottled: 9 June 2016
Forgot to check FG!
Bottled 4.5 gallons with 3.6 oz table sugar.

Dark Mild

Looking to have some sessionable beers on hand for the summer, I returned to the realm of British ales. Milds have rarely crossed my path, but I find the concept of a dark, low-alcohol beer that pushes malt and a little roast over hops intriguing. Having recently started listening to the Experimental Brewing podcast, and mild having come up there in light of the recent Session Beer Day, this recipe is loosely based on host Drew Beechum's (et al.) CDJK Mild.

I grew up the West Yorkshire Ale yeast from my sadly diacetyl-laden porter, hoping that getting past that first generation might yield better results. Thankfully it did: I've noticed no diacetyl so far. I also skipped water treatment (except carbon filtering) this time. As I continue to refine my brewing practices, it seemed a good idea to see what kind of beer my source water produces on its own before monkeying with the chemistry, which I still don't fully grasp (it's been slow going through Water for some time now). I'll pick on this aspect if/when I rebrew this recipe.

As this style traditionally gets the cask treatment, my three one-gallon cubitainers came back out on bottling day. Not having any interesting aroma hops around at the time--and this being a more malt-focused style anyway--experimentation between vessels took a different turn. One cubitainer remained plain, one got home-toasted oak cubes, and the last got a small dose of whole Stumptown coffee beans from our recent trip to Portland. I sampled liberally from all three in celebration of Memorial Day; while all were quite good, the oaked version really stood out for me. Full tasting notes coming soon!

Dark Mild

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.040
Projected SRM: 19.1
Projected IBU: 22.3
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 64%   

Grains/Fermentables
60.6% - 5 lb Rahr 2-row
12.1% - 1 lb Bairds Crystal 75L
3.0% - 4 oz Bairds RB
12.1% - 1 lb Flaked oats
12.1% - 1 lb Turbinado

Hops
1 oz EKG (5.7%) (60 min)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 1L starter from Winter Porter yeast cake

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)

Brewday: 7 May 2016
Mash: 153F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o sugar): 6.9P (1.027)

Fermented in bucket with lid loose in swamp cooler at 65F ambient; locked down lid, affixed airlock, and ramped up to 68F after 3 days active fermentation.

Bottled: 23 May 2016
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.9%

3 gallons into cubitainers, each with .2 oz table sugar: 1 plain, 1 with g oak cubes (boiled), 1 with 3 g Stumptown El Nevado Colombian coffee beans (whole, loose, unsanitized).

Remainder bottled with 1.66 oz table sugar.

Double IPA & Winter Porter Tasting

While brewing a session IPA today to have on hand for summer festivities, I finally decided to knock out a couple sets of tasting notes. Neither of these beers turned out exactly as I'd like. The double IPA seems like it might've found the mark if I wouldn't cling so closely to my memory of what Amarillo hops used to be; the porter suffered from my own misuse or mistreatment of the West Yorkshire Ale yeast. For all the smack I talk below, I'm still drinking both these beers without having to work too hard to choke them down.

===== 
BRING IT ON DIPA

Appearance: (Chill) hazy golden orange color, big off-white head that has a good bit of staying power. In pouring, the beer/bottle yeast can have a strange pinkish hue. Becomes very clear when warm.

Smell: Pine, onion, some alcohol, a little bread as it warms.

Taste: Pine & onion hanging around from the aroma along with some diesel hop character. Some perception of sweetness that may be coming from the hops. Finishes with a balanced bitterness, definitely not overly bitter.

Mouthfeel: On the thin side, though not overly so. Medium carbonation; hits the tongue without filleting it. A little tongue numbing.

Overall: Probably my most successful attempt at a double IPA. This one reached the degree of attenuation I was seeking to get away from cloying malt sweetness; I may even want to bump it back up a couple points next time to retain a bit more malt backbone. Malt definitely didn't get in the way here, and I'm tempted to add in a higher percentage of character grains (Munich, Vienna, aromatic, or even a bit of crystal) in the future. I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that the Amarillo hops I've had in the last couple years do not have the same citrus characteristics that endeared this varietal to me originally. I'm getting a lot more of the onion/garlic/diesel now. It doesn't always come out--and I sure hope it doesn't on the session IPA I'm brewing today--but I'm missing the mark more often than not with this hop.

=====

Winter Porter

Appearance: Deep brown/black body with clear red-brown highlights; a little bit of light brown foam hangs out at the rim for a while. While I'd like more head on this beer, otherwise it looks pretty much like spot on for the style.

Smell: I've given this one fifteen to twenty minutes to warm up before sampling, so much of the diacetyl present in this batch--which has been widely variable, bottle to bottle--may have blown off. Some butter popcorn remains, combining with the dark grains and a mineral character to give an impression of sharp mineral roastiness. While not terrible, the diacetyl buttery character has been so strong on other bottles as to make this nigh undrinkable.

Taste: I'm struggling here. Not assertively roasty, though not chocolatey either. Has a certain tang that I associate with the dark malts to a degree, but I can't quite pin with a descriptor. Not the best.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body from the residual sweetness and slight residual diacetyl. Does retain a certain creaminess, especially when chewed a bit. Not unpleasant.

Overall: Not my favorite porter, to be sure. I've had spectacular results from this yeast (WY1469) in the past, but on this batch it really took a bad turn. This was my first real experience with diacetyl, and it's been strong enough to encourage me to do a diacetyl rest on every beer from here on out. It's been a few years now since I had Flag Porter, but my recollection of that beer was my guide here. My quest for a really badass "English/brown" porter continues.

Peach Melomel III

Last summer in northern Utah, I picked up a 24-lb bucket of local wildflower honey to bump up mead production for DeAunn. When we returned to Reno, we also bought several pounds of fruit at the local farmers' markets for various fermentation projects, which we prepared and socked away in the freezer. It took me until earlier this month to finally do something with all of it.

While she's been very receptive to all of my mead making endeavors, DeAunn has always particularly loved my peach melomel. Having only six pounds of peaches to dedicate to the cause, I aimed for a three-gallon batch. Fermenting in a full-size carboy or bucket sure beat working with the little two-gallon bucket or one-gallon wine jugs I've used before.

Also new and exciting was using the TOSNA (tailored organic staggered nutrient addition) method as detailed by Sergio Moutela of Melovino Meader on Mead Made Right. I've followed the conventional SNA, as set forth by champion mead maker Curt Stock, for past batches and have been pleased with the outcome; I'll be curious to see how this batch might differ because of this altered method. Both methods champion relatively quick turnaround: two to three months to being drinkable versus a year or more that more traditional methods require.

Having just transferred to secondary, my only change for future batches right now would be to bag the fruit in primary. There was around four and a half gallons of material in the primary fermenter; from it, I couldn't quite squeeze out a full three gallons to transfer, leaving behind a massive amount of peach sludge. It will get close to a month in secondary before bottling so we can take plenty with us for our summer travels (and age the rest for the next year). Now to decide what to do with the rest of this bucket of honey...

Peach Melomel III

Batch size: 3 gallons
Projected OG: 1.100

Fermentables
10 lb Utah mountain honey
6 lb Peaches (peeled, frozen)

Yeast
4 g Lalvin 71B-1122 (rehydrated)

Extras
5 g Go-Ferm (yeast rehydration)
15 g Fermaid-O (TOSNA: 3.75 g @ 24, 48, 72 hrs, 7 days after pitching)

Brewed: 4 May 2016
Rehydrate yeast: 100 g boiled water
OG: 18.8P (1.0 - Figuring honey isn’t totally diluted, nor are the peaches

Fermented in swamp cooler at 62-64F. Degassed twice a day for the first week of fermentation.

After the first week, left town for a few days; swamp cooler ambient reached 69F. Upon returning, cooled it back down into 62-64F range and degassed about once a day for the remainder of primary.

Secondary: 22 May 2016
FG: 1.010
ABV: 13.7%
Added 1.5 tsp bentonite dissolved in 1.5 cups boiled water.

Incredible amount of peach sludge; struggled to extract nearly 3 gallons from 4.5-gallon primary.

Bottled: 9 June 2016

BVIP II

And like that, I've reached my one hundred fiftieth batch. Keeping with my tradition of brewing a big dark beer every twenty-fifth batch, I returned to what was such a monumental hit at batch #50, Denny Conn's bourbon vanilla imperial porter. A perfectly refined porter recipe with the addition of vanilla beans and bourbon to approximate barrel aging, this treated DeAunn and me very well on our honeymoon.

I played it pretty much exactly like last time, though the original gravity was quite a bit lower (last time it was 1.085) and I left the vanilla beans in for better than a month, rather than a couple weeks. Nevertheless, it tasted great at bottling and I'm looking forward to cracking open one of these despite the approaching warm weather.

BVIP II
Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.072
Projected SRM: 41.1
Projected IBU: 35.0
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 65%   

Grains
64.0% - 12 lb Rahr 2-row
13.3% - 2.5 lb Weyermann Munich I
8.0% - 1.5 lb Brown malt
6.4% - 1.25 lb UK Chocolate
5.3% - 1 lb C120
2.7% - .5 lb C40

Hops
.7 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)
1 oz EKG (5.7%) (10 min)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 (12.29.2015) - 1.8-l stirplate starter, crashed on brewday

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
2.5 Vanilla beans, chopped & scraped (secondary)
300 ml Bourbon (bottling)

Water (mash)
Base Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
Target Profile: London (brewersfriend.com)
96.1 Ca, 15.6 Mg, 27.0 Na, 58.3 Cl, 2.6 SO4
Alkalinity 103.1, RA 25.4

Brewday: 6 March 2016
Mash: 24 qts @ 152F for 60 minutes
1st sparge: 8.5 qts @ 190F
2nd sparge: 9 qts @ 180F
Pre-boil volume: 8 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15P (1.060)

Salt additions (mash): 5g Epsom salts, 1g Salt, 3g CaCl, 13g Chalk, 1g Baking soda, 10 ml Lactic acid (88%)

6 gallons at 18P (1.072) to fermenter at 61F. Fermented in swamp cooler at 63F ambient.
Extra runnings (including lots of trub) went to a gallon jug; added water to reach about a gallon. OG 12.8P (1.050), dosed with harvested WY1469.

Vigorous activity within 12 hours. Swamp cooler free rose to 64F ambient over the day.

On day 2 of active fermentation, temp surged and the krauesen rose out of the bucket (stopper hole was covered with aluminum foil. Swamp cooler temp had been pushed to 66F. After cleanup & blowoff setup, fermenter was put back in swamp cooler held at 62-63F ambient. Came out of swamp cooler after high krauesen & finished at 68F ambient.

Secondary: 23 March 2016

Bottled: 30 April 2016
FG: 1.021
ABV: 6.9%
Bottled with 300ml Jim Beam bourbon and 3.8 oz table sugar.
Adjusted ABV: 7.4%

Winter Porter

My last several batches have been more on the hop forward side, and I longed for a dark beer to pair with the colder weather. Following the old BJCP style guidelines, I believe this would fit pretty well into the mold of a brown porter; with the 2015 revision, for style considerations it now sits as an "English porter."

The beer came together without incident, but the yeast behaved differently than I expected. My experience with West Yorkshire Ale is that the kraeusen hangs around long after active fermentation ceases. This time around, I saw almost no visible activity other than a bit of trub ring. Though this batch had plenty of time to sit at room temp at the end of fermentation, this batch showed lots of diacetyl shortly after bottling. Fortunately, a lot of that has seemed to dissipate over time. The resulting beer is pleasant, though it has an edge that I attribute to too much roast malt. I kept pushing up the roasted grains in BeerSmith to get it dark enough; the end result is plenty brown-black, but could probably do with a reduction in these malts to keep it from getting to acrid. The remaining diacetyl works with the acrid roast character in a not unpleasant way, resulting in a bit of dark fruit character rounding out the flavor. Not bad; would rebrew with tweaks.

Winter Porter

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.045
Projected SRM: 29.1
Projected IBU: 27.9
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 66%   

Grains/Fermentables
67.5% - 7 lb Rahr 2-row
14.5% - 1.5 lb Brown malt
9.6% - 1 lb UK dark crystal (75-80L)
4.8% - 8 oz UK Pale Chocolate
3.6% - 6 oz UK Chocolate

Hops

.3 oz Millennium (15.9%) (60 min)
1.3 oz EKG (5.7%) (10 min)
.3 oz Styrian Goldings (3.8%) (10 min)

Yeast
WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale - no starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Base Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
107 Ca, 11.2 Mg, 44.1 Na, 63.7 SO4
Alkalinity 171.6, RA 88.7

Brewday: 10 February 2016
Mash: 13 qts @ 154F for 60 minutes + 2 qts @ 212F to get to temp
1st sparge: 12 qts @ 190F
2nd sparge: 13 qts @ 180F
Pre-boil volume:  gallons
Pre-boil SG: 10P (1.0)

Salt additions (to mash): 1 g Gypsum, 3 g Epsom salt, 4 g CaCl, 11 g Chalk, 5 g Baking Soda, 8 ml Lactic Acid (88%)

5.8 gallons at 64F to the fermenter; no aeration past transfer splashing.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 65F ambient.

13 February 2016: Visible activity stopped without any sign of the never-ending krauesen characteristic of this yeast. Removed from swamp cooler & agitated; sat at ambient (68F). Moderate surface bubbling—not a real krauesen yet—appeared over the course of the day.

Bottled: 2 March 2016
FG: 1.018
ABV: 3.5%
Bottled with 3.4 oz table sugar.

Moved final gallon onto Sour Culture No. 2.

Sour Bottled: 30 April 2016
FG: 1.013
ABV: 4.2%
Good lactic sourness.
Bottled with .3 oz table sugar.

Tasting

RIS III: (nearly) 2-Year Tasting

This was my last big "quarter century" beer--brewed a bit over two years ago--and my third (of three, to date) imperial stout. Not only were the roasted grains put front and center here, but I even cleared the grain bill of really anything else; the grist is about 80% base malt, the remaining 20% made up of brown malt and roasted barley.

That's a hell of a lot of dark grain, and it showed. I liked the beer all right when it was younger, but it was not easy to finish a bottle. It did all right in competition last year, but I saw a lot of truth in the judges' comments about its high residual sweetness and astringency. I ended up dumping nearly all of the bottles months ago, saving a few with the intent of cooking with them.

On a whim, I threw a bottle in the fridge the other week. After nearly two years in the bottle, I found it to have softened and rounded out considerably. I'm definitely bummed now that I only have a few bottles left, but it definitely cheers me up as I consider finally doing a vertical tasting of my first three beers in this series.

=====

Appearance: Jet black, the edge rimmed with tiny mocha bubbles.

Smell: Plums, big chocolate note jumps out of the glass. Fanfuckingtastic.

Taste: Fruity, high-percentage cacao dark chocolate. Comes on strong with some booze initially, but then clears out relatively quickly. It manages to avoid being syrupy despite the high FG (1.032).

Mouthfeel: Medium-thick and full; pretty mouth-filling but not overly heavy. Enough carbonation to help clear it off the palate. It (thankfully) has left heft than many huge imperial stouts.

Overall: Could use a little more going on in the middle (caramel malt, perhaps) but a damn sight better than it was in its first year. The acrid/astringent notes have mellowed considerably, leaving chocolate, fruit, and booze. It's a good lesson in patience; maybe I should just bury the next batch in an undisclosed location for a few years.

SMaSH II Tasting

The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that SMaSH beers are more useful as experiments to get to know particular ingredients than as "refined" recipes for heavy rotation imbibing. While I'll admit that the two SMaSHes I've done now haven't made me the most excited of anything I've brewed, this one in particular isn't terribly hard to drink. Though I doubled the hops from my first SMaSH, I'll probably push up the hopping rate further for subsequent batches. I do get some flavor & aroma contributions from the Sterling here, but this rates as a solid blonde ale. To really get the full sense of the hops, I'll probably aim for more West Coast pale ale character going forward.

=====

Appearance: Burnished gold, a touch hazy.

Smell: Slight toast, warm malt. Hops come out as herbal and earthy. Maybe just a little citrus hiding in the back.

Taste: Crisp, herbal, slightly orange. It intensifies as it moves to the back half of the tongue, finishing warm and bready. An herbal note lingers.

Mouthfeel: Medium-lean body, mid/low carbonation that gives it just a little bite around the front and sides of the tongue. Not difficult to take the next drink.

Overall: Though it's not terribly complex, it's an easy drinker. The Vienna makes a good impression here. I could use more Sterling character...or maybe I couldn't, as the lingering herbal note isn't necessarily my favorite. I could see this hop working well in a lager.

Double IPA

With few exceptions, my hoppy beers haven't been terribly successful. My attempts to brew double/imperial IPAs have met with outright failure. But hope springs eternal, and here I am, giving this style another shot.

I blame having a few opportunities over the past couple years to bury my face in a Pliny the Elder at Russian River's brewpub; living on this end of the country definitely has its advantages. For me, this beer still captures the best of hop flavor and drinkability that this style can offer. So, as many before me have done, I loosely modeled this recipe on the one Vinnie Cilurzo has given out freely for many years now.

That being said, I swapped Vinnie's crystal and carapils for dark Munich to add a touch of maltiness and added flaked oats for...well, because I can't help myself. With my excessively low mash temperature, I may yet regret the lack of unfermentables when I check the FG. Hey, I like a well

attenuated beer, so I guess we'll just see. I stuck with CTZ, Simcoe, and Centennial for hops, but added a significant amount of fruity Amarillo to the hop party. (I still have a bunch left over from last year, and I see a Yellow Snow-inspired IPA on the horizon to take care of that.) I also added a hell of a lot of brewing salts to the mash, chasing Tasty McDole's mineral concentrations I recorded from a Session at some point. I've been pleased with--or at least not offended by--the water manipulation I've done in the last few years, but this is another level of messing around.

While I certainly have a lot of trepidation revolving around this batch, fermentation on the Cal ale yeast cake from my recent SMaSH beer took right the hell off, but I easily kept fermentation temps low in a swamp cooler. With the first charge of dry hops in the carboy, it smells amazing; I'm fired up to see how it all turns out in the end.

BRING IT ON

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.073
Projected SRM: 5.4
Projected IBU: 110.6
Boil time: 70 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 60%   

Grains/Fermentables
69.8% - 11 lb Rahr 2-row
12.7% - 2 lb Flaked oats
9.5% - 1.5 lb Weyermann Munich II
7.9% - 1.25 lb Table sugar (primary)

Hops
1 oz Columbus (15.2%) (60 min)
1 oz Simcoe (11.6%) (10 min)
.5 oz Centennial (11.2%) (10 min)

1 oz Amarillo (10.7%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)
1 oz Centennial (8.5%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)
.5 oz Simcoe (11.1%) (0 min - 60 min whirlpool/hop stand)

2 oz Amarillo (dry hop #1 - 10 days)
2 oz Centennial (dry hop #1 - 10 days)
1.5 oz Simcoe (dry hop #1 - 10 days)

1 oz Amarillo (dry hop #2 - 5 days)
1 oz Centennial (dry hop #2 - 5 days)
1 oz Simcoe (11.6%) (dry hop #2 - 5 days)

Yeast
WLP001 American Ale - cake from SMaSH II 

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)

Water (mash)
Base Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
114.1 Ca, 18.2 Mg, 10 Na
43.3 Cl, 264.6 SO4
Alkalinity -123.8, RA -215.8

Brewday: 17 January 2016
Mash: 146F for 70 minutes (intended 151F)
Pre-boil volume: 8 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 12.8P (1.050)
Post-boil OG (w/o sugar): 15.6P (1.062)

Salt additions (to mash): 14 g Gypsum, 6 g Epsom salts, 3 g CaCl, 12 (should’ve been 14) ml Lactic acid (88%)
Chilled to 58F.
5.6 gallons to fermenter; 45 seconds of pure O2 at pitching.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 60F ambient.

Sugar addition #1 (.75 lb): 22 January 2016

24 January 2016: moved out of swamp cooler to ambient temp (~66F).

Sugar addition #2 (.5 lb): 25 January 2016

Dry hop #1: 27 January 2016

Dry hop #2: 2 February 2016

Bottled: 6 February 2016
FG: 1.009
ABV: 8.5%
Bottled 5.5 gallons with 4.3 oz table sugar.

Tasting

2015 Barleywine

I admire brewers that produce annual "special" beers. From Sierra Nevada Bigfoot to Mike Tonsmiere's funky dark saisons, these can make for some very special comparative samplings. While I do mark every twenty-five batches with a big, dark beer, alternating between imperial stouts and Baltic/imperial porters, it can be several years between these batches. Usually, very few bottles from each batch remain to compare to the next. So at the end of 2015, I finally brewed my first barleywine, which I plan to rebrew annually in some form and (mostly) save for vertical tastings.

I shot for an American interpretation, somewhat in the style of Bigfoot. In light of how my Munich II SMaSH turned out, that grain should lend plenty of malty oomph to augment the crystal additions. The hops are geared mostly for bitterness; I don't plan to drink this terribly young, so I'm not worrying too much about the aromatics. The smaller batch size should be enough to taste over the span of 2016 and still leave some for comparison with future iterations. I dig establishing a new tradition.

2015 Barleywine

Batch size: 3.25 gallons
Projected OG: 1.109
Projected SRM: 14.9
Projected IBU: 127.7
Boil time: 120 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 59%

Grains/Fermentables
63.2% - 9 lb Rahr 2-row
15.0% - 2 lb Weyermann Munich II
5.3% - 12 oz C40
3.5% - 8 oz C80
14.0% - 2 lb Table sugar (primary)

Hops
1.1 oz Columbus (15.6%) (60 min)
2 oz Centennial (8.5%) (15 min)

Yeast
1 pkg US-05, rehydrated

Extras

1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
10 g Gypsum
6 g Epsom salts
2 g Salt
2 g Chalk
2 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 30 December 2015
Mash: 147F for 90 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o sugar): 13.9P (1.055)
Post-boil OG (w/o sugar): 20P (1.081)

Mash water target Mosher’s “Ideal Pale Ale” profile (110 Ca, 18 Mg, 17 Na, 50, Cl, 279 SO4).
3.75 gallons to the fermenter. 1 minute of pure O2 at pitching; reoxygenated 15 hours after pitching with no visible activity.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 60F ambient.

6 January 2015: First sugar addition, 1 lb dissolved in water. Lots of additional fermentation activity. Keeping swamp cooler temps at 60-61F, rousing yeast/off-gassing beer several times a day.

9 January 2015: Second sugar addition, 1 lb dissolved in water. Significant odor I associate with acetobacter, possibly from fermenting with lid only loosely placed on bucket rather than sealed w/ airlock. Might also be from first sugar addition, as odor only appeared after that. We'll see how it turns out.

Secondary: 30 January 2016
FG: 1.008
ABV: 13.5%
3+ gallons to carboy; ~1/2 gallon to growler with .5 oz home-toasted oak (boiled).
Hydrometer sample isn’t thin, but lacks the body and maltiness I’d expect from a barleywine. The bittering hops are very present but not explosive like a young Bigfoot; they lay on the back of the tongue and stay past their welcome.

Bottled: 30 April 2016
Much rounder, more pleasant, and more characteristically barleywine flavor after this time bulk aging. No acetic notes, improved body, and the hop bitterness has recede. Oaked growler didn’t exhibit a lot of oak character, but seemed just fine and went in the bottling bucket with the rest of the batch. Looking forward to tasting this carbonated, and looking forward to it even more next winter when I brew the next batch.
Bottled with 1.7 oz table sugar.

SMaSH II

My brewing runs in short spurts these days. I finally managed to get some wort out of the mash tun and over the burner during the no man's land between Christmas and New Year's Eve. The first batch was another SMaSH, this time featuring Vienna malt and Sterling hops.

I've used Vienna quite a bit and really like the bready, grainy warmth it brings to a recipe. Sterling, on the other hand, I've never used in a way that has really accentuated its character. I recall a beer brewed by Ted Danyluk in Chicago in my early days of homebrewing that featured this varietal, but that's about the extent of my experience with it.

Given the lack of hop character in my previous SMaSH, I've bumped up the hops to four ounces this time; hopefully they'll make a more pronounced appearance in this iteration. I suppose I should really aim for a half pound or more to really make them stand out, but we'll see how it goes here. As this beer features a German malt and an American "noble"(ish)-style hop, I went with an American ale yeast fermented a little cooler than normal to get a clean (possibly faux-lager/hybrid?) character.

As of this posting, the batch has been going for a solid week, the swamp cooler holding steady and cool, and the overly full primary carboy has been intermittently blowing off yeast throughout a very consistent fermentation. Thinking good thoughts as it continues to rock along.

SMaSH II

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.048
Projected SRM: 5.0
Projected IBU: 37.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 73%

Grains
100.0% - 10 lb Weyermann Vienna

Hops
.5 oz Sterling (8.7%) (60 min)
1 oz Sterling (10 min)
1 oz Sterling (0 min - 30 min whirlpool/hop steep)
1.5 oz Sterling (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
1 vial WLP001 California Ale - no starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
8 g Gypsum
1 g Epsom salts
1 g CaCl
5.5 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 27 December 2015
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.8P (1.038)

Mash profile target “Light colored and hoppy” from brewersfriend.com.
Received 45 seconds of pure O2 at pitching. Reoxygentated 12 hours later prior to active fermentation.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 59-61F ambient.

3 January 2016: After 6 days of active fermentation, during which there was active blowoff, upped the swamp cooler temp to 62F.

Despite very cloudy kettle runoff at the end of transfer to primary, there's probably only about 1 qt of trub at the bottom of the fermenter. Will plan to leave less in the kettle in the future!

8 January 2016: Krauesen still present, but very little noticeable activity. Raised swamp cooler temp to 64F & have agitated fermenter daily.

Dry Hop: 9 January 2016
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.7%

Transferred to new bucket, sealed without an airlock (or hole). Fair bit of splashing during transfer early on, unfortunately, so won’t be surprised it this one turns out oxidized.

Bottled: 15 January 2016
Bottled with 4 oz table sugar.

Tasting: Success! Easy drinking with notes of warm bread and herbal hops.