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