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!

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

SMaSH I Tasting

Sadly, I haven't been able to fit in a brewday since the one when I started this batch and the Timothy Taylor Landlord clone, which sadly seems to have succumbed to oxidation. While I hope to brew in the final days of 2015 (and the early days of 2016) in the meantime it was definitely time for tasting notes on my first SMaSH beer. At the extreme end of base malts, I can now say that I definitely understand the flavor impact of Munich II when formulating future recipes. The hops, however, were too sparse to really make a statement; I'll dial up those for future batches.

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Appearance: Deep amber, trending toward orange at the edges with solid red highlights. Just a little hazy.

Smell: Super malty, a little sweet, lots of dark bread crust. This is a melanoidin-rich aroma. No discernible hop presence.

Taste: Bread crust through and through, richly malty, but without any lingering sweetness. A hint of fruitiness maybe. Just a touch of neutral hop bitterness on the end, leaving an aftertaste of warm bread.

Mouthfeel: Full, heavy for such a low-alcohol (4.3% ABV) beer. Carbonation is medium-low; present without being prickly, it's a bit above cask level.

Overall: Honestly, not a bad malty beer. It's fairly one-dimensional, which isn't hard to believe given the grain bill and relatively neutral yeast. Unfortunately, I'm left with no idea what the Nuggetzilla hops have to contribute in terms of flavor or aroma. This is ended up being a real malt bomb, which really switches it up from my normal brewing habits. It certainly isn't hard to drink, but tends to be a low-gravity sipper.

Summer Pale Ale '15 tasting

This has turned out to be one of my more successful hoppy beers, though it's not as fresh as it once was. The malt character is close to what I'd like out of an American pale: background grain & bread, no more than a hint of sweetness. The hops side still needs to be dialed in; lacking experience with Chinook--and maybe getting something different from the Amarillo than I foresaw--the hop character ended up much darker and heavier than my sense memory had prepared me to expect. If the worst thing that happens, though, is that I have to do more "research" (read: brewing) to learn more, then I think I can live with that.

ALSO: Hey, it's post #100! I've gone through a couple gallons of beer over the last four and a half years since I started whinging about homebrewing. More to come!

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Appearance: Amber-gold, a bit hazy. Moderate head laces down the glass.

Smell: Assertive orange juice, hints of dark pine following up. Very nice.

Taste: Orange juice carries through from the aroma, coupled with firm upfront grapefruit/pine bitterness. Finishes somewhat rough, on the onion/pine end of the spectrum. Malt is slightly warm in the finish, but pretty low; it adds a little complexity to the end. Low for a pale ale; the hops are solidly on top.

Mouthfeel: Carbonation is a little prickly; body is low-medium with a nice creaminess. Squarely a pale ale in this area.

Overall: Not a bad pale ale, though not quite to my taste. The assertive onion/pine character was more than I’d prefer. I’d pinned it to the Chinook, though I’ve recently had it suggested to me that this character may come from certain Amarillo crops. In the end, the principal drawback from its sessionability is the hop character; I keep stopping to consider the hop character. Not a bad thing, honestly.

Rye Saison II tasting

Finally managed to do this long-promised tasting. Of course, I ran out of the first batch before this point, so we're down to a single non-comparative review. To make up for that, though, I'm including highlights from the comments I received on this batch from the 2015 Great Basin Brew Off here in Reno, in which this beer took first place in the Belgian & French Ales category. I also just learned/realized today that this beer--along with the first session IPA--is now eligible for the Nevada State Homebrewing Championship in the fall, so it'll soon be rebrew time for me. I may diversify the grain bill to a degree, but I'm not unhappy with what this beer has become with some age.

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Date: 10 May 2015

Venue: Home (Sparks, NV)

Appearance - Hazy golden orange. Medium bubbles collect at the top of the glass, creating a dense, lasting foam stand that leaves a bit of lace.

Smell - Perfume, a little soap, and pear. Maybe a bit of orange. Some spice in the background. Very low hop aroma.

Taste - Dry & spicy; clove, flowery, light fruit (pear again?). Finishes with a solid phenolic kick that definitely says saison. The yeast really shines here. Hint of malt in the back. Nice & clean.

Mouthfeel - Lively, prickly carbonation, but the body is still medium full; thanks, rye malt!

Overall - My early reservations disappeared with age. Spice & phenolics are right on. Maybe I'd go for more malt and/or fruity ester character, but I'm very happy with this simple recipe and looking forward to more saison brewing.

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Judges' comments:

Aroma - "Some very nice spiciness up front. A bit of black pepper, honey, tropical fruit."
   "Fruity aroma with some grainy maltiness, peppery aroma also. Very high carbonation makes it tingle in the nose."

Appearance - "Golden color, white rocky head that persists..."
   "Great color and appearance. Head is a little thinner that I'd like to see, but is persistent."

Flavor - "A bit of sweet graininess in the front, followed with a lot of acid from carbonation. Pineapple. Some nice hop bitterness that lingers. Some spice pops through."
   "Spicy flavor with some low hop bittering and flavor, no tartness in flavor. Dry finish by the hop bittering lingers..."

Mouthfeel - "Medium body, high carbonation, no astringency, no tartness, no alcohol warming."
   "Carbonation is high, almost too high."

Overall - "Very tasty. High carbonation makes it appear very dry and with the lingering hops it seems a bit too bitter for the style..."
   "...Clean with peppery phenols but balanced. Seems a little higher hop rates but still very drinkable..."

American Oatmeal Brown tasting

Catching up on my tasting notes! I fairly tore through this batch of hoppy American brown ale with oats, but managed to show enough restraint to keep a final bottle for tasting notes. It's had a little while to hang out in the fridge, but I don't think the time has really detracted from the overall impact of the beer. The way fruity American hops combine with the cocoa and roast character of the dark grains is fantastic. I doubt I'll drink browns all the time, but I certainly won't avoid them as I once did.

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Date: 16 February 2015

Venue: Our house

Appearance - Nearly black, opaque; big-bubble cappuccino foam drops after a few minutes.

Smell - Lots of orange, a little pine.

Taste - Pine, chocolate covered orange. Not a lot of malt presence. Solid bitter finish.

Mouthfeel - Light-medium body; gets nicely thick & creamy when chewed.

Overall - This was the last regular bottle, and it's mellowed a bit. The hops still sing pretty well, though, especially when it's warmed up a little. The effect of the oats on the mouthfeel was definitely worth repeating. On a rebrew I might back off the dark grains to achieve more of a brown color and further restrain the roast character. Pretty damn tasty, and very happy with how it came out.

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!

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.

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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.

2014 Beehive Brewoff Results

We're just about settled in our new place in Reno. Helping this feel more like home, I put together a melomel a few weeks ago, which I'll move out of primary for clarification and further aging today. Today will also mark my first brewday in Nevada, an event that will definitely help me feel more at home here. The first bit of homebrewing activity here, however, came a few weeks ago in the form of my BJCP scoresheets from the 2014 Beehive Brewoff.

This was my second time entering this competition, and I felt the feedback I received both times was on the mark for the beers reviewed. I'm happy to report that this year the Belgian dark strong I brewed a couple years ago took second in the Belgian strong ale category with a respectable average score of 40. The years have treated this beer well, rounding off its sharp edges. It's gratifying as well as edifying to read reviews from impartial judges; even though they scored this beer well, they had suggestions for improving it.

Even more helpful were the scoresheets for the other two beers I entered, my second attempt at a Flanders red and my most recent iteration of Russian imperial stout. The RIS scored a 32, dinged primarily for high residual sweetness and astringency. The FG was quite high in the end, which I'd hoped would help balance the high amount of roasted grains (the main contributor of astingency). In the end, I missed the balance here; while I enjoyed the experiment of cutting out the caramel malts and upping the roasted component on this batch, it does make for a less pleasurable experience than it could be. I'll definitely retool for the next go-around, adding back some caramel and cutting down on the roast.

The Flanders red did not do well, scoring an average of 22. While it received generally good notes for the aroma, the judges pointed to a high level of acetobacter activity (vinegar) and high astringency. While they found it to be sour, they found little else. At the beginning of the summer, in the first few months after bottling, I got a ton of great cherry and bready malt riding the bracing wave of sourness in this beer. Tasting it now, however, I certainly agree with the judges; most of the cherry and malt have fallen off, leaving just a stomach-churning acidic burn. However, I think I've already had more mileage out of this batch than I could have reasonably expected: it blew out its airlock in primary over the summer while we were away for three months, then spent a year wasting away in a plastic bucket, prone to oxygen exposure and acetobacter infection, before I finally bottled it. That I was able to have a good tasting experience with this beer at all was a boon, given the amount of abuse and mishandling it received.

Though we're not in Salt Lake City anymore, I would not hesitate to enter this competition again. Furthermore, I plan to seek out competitions locally over the next few years; getting experienced opinions from others on how to improve my beers will certainly help me advance more quickly than just doing my own informal evaluations. Looking forward to brewing today, and improving those beers in subsequent batches.

Blast from the Past Tasting - Wheatwine

I was rooting around my collection of bombers set aside for long-term aging at some point last month, and decided to finally dump a couple that just hadn't turned out.  Among them was the wheatwine I brewed shortly after starting this blog; it had finished thick and never managed to carbonate, and I dumped the batch before we moved from Chicago.  Upon applying the opener to the cap, however, I was met with--miracle of miracles--a surprisingly forceful hiss.  This bomber, the final remnant of the batch nearly two years old at that point, had actually carbonated!  My best guess is that the Brett from the Wyeast Old Ale Blend I used hung around and did the work over time.  It gives me faint hope for my all-rye Scotch ale experiment disaster.  I was so pleasantly surprised that I poured a taster and recapped the bottle for a later tasting.

It's a good thing I took notes from that taster.  That small glass was exactly the right amount of this beer.  I finally reopened the bottle last week, finding it still adequately carbonated; however, a full glass turned out to be just too overwhelming, and since most of it had been poured, I ended up dumping it.  The body was just way too thick for consuming in quantity; because of this, I'd consider this batch a candidate for bottling in--no joke--mini 1-fl oz bottles.  Truly, a dab'll do ya; that first taster I had was just right.  Without further ado, here are my notes from that tasting.

Wheatwine

Appearance - Deep orange-amber with a mix of fine and coarse bubbles.  Interesting to watch rising bubbles really struggle through the viscosity of the beer.

Smell - Sweet, dark candy and caramel.  Deep maltiness.

Taste - Sweet from residual sugar (1.028 SG at bottling); not a lot of wheat and/or bread character.  Alcohol very present, but not hot or solventy.  Bittersweet finish.

Mouthfeel -Very thick; carbonation is low to medium.  I'm just glad it carbed at all!

Overall - More than many other beers I've brewed, this one is a real experience in a glass.  More than a taster is too much to deal with; just that much, though, gives you a window into something very out of the ordinary.  As intrigued as I am, I don't think it encourages me to run out to try a tall glass of a commercial example, let alone brew five more gallons of my own.

Little Rye Porter Tasting

While I love brewing big beers, I often feel most rewarded by successes with low-gravity batches; it can be a challenge to keep the alcohol low without losing flavour and body.  One option for beers that call for such small amounts of raw materials is to use grains with a lot of character; for me, a base of rye malt can do just the trick.  I've certainly struggled using too high a proportion on larger beers, but rye's spicy, rustic flavour and glutinous mouthfeel can really enhance a beer that could otherwise be thin and lifeless.  With this rye-based brown porter I may have finally found the balanced roastiness I've always sought; it's an integral component, which separates this beer from a brown ale, but without overstepping its bounds into the realm of burnt coffee.

Little Rye Porter

Appearance -Deep, rich brown body with red highlights at the edges, topped with a dense tan head; it definitely lives up to its brown porter designation.

Smell -Very pleasant, rounded roastiness, with bready malt beneath.

Taste - Roast is very present without being overpowering.  It's followed by nicely rough rye bread notes, with a little biscuit hiding beneath.  The roast and rye both make an appearance in the brief finish.

Mouthfeel - Super slick and creamy from the rye, and very full bodied; a feat for a lot of small beers, especially without becoming too sweet (which this isn't).  The carbonation may just a bit high.

Overall - Really pleased with this one; it's my best "smaller" (i.e., not Baltic/imperial) porter to date, especially considering the roast balance.  I'd like to see if I can strike a similar note with a barley base in place of the rye; planning that for the fall.

English Summer Ale Tasting

At this blog's one-year mark a few months ago, I challenged myself to post more tasting notes of my beers.  I've fallen behind on this resolution, but am getting back on track with a couple tastings this week.  First up is my English summer ale; while the WY1028 sent this in a different direction than I'd originally conceived, it's still a very quaffable beer for a hot summer day.

English Summer Ale

Appearance - Pours a billowy head of large bubbles that hangs around for most of the glass.  Slightly hazy, with a warm gold colour.

Smell - Bread and biscuits, with even more emerging as it warms.  Light floral hop notes in the background.

Taste - Lots of mineral character comes forth immediately; strangely, it suggests an almost lager-like quality to me, which has backed off some over the last few weeks.  The wheat comes through in the middle, with qualities of warm bread and crackers.  Some fruitiness comes in near the end, accompanied by more bread.  Mineral lingers.

Mouthfeel - Carbonation may be a touch high for an English style, but it's not bothersome here.  Light to medium-light body.

Overall - It's an intriguing beer, especially for being so light.  I now have a very clear idea what is meant by "mineral" notes deriving from some English yeast.  This is definitely a more appealing wheat style to me than hefeweizen (too banana-clove-bubblegum) and wit (too celery), and more interesting than a lot of American wheats.  This one is probably ready for a rebrew just as it is, though I'd like to try a fruitier English yeast.

Sinebrychoff Porter Tasting - 2-year, 3-year, 1.5-year clone with recipe

I’ve promised a tasting of the rye 70/-, and it’ll make its merry way here soon enough.  Beating it to the punch, though, are tasting notes about a year in the making.  Sinebrychoff Porter, a vinous Baltic beast out of Finland, was an early introduction for me into the worlds of both porter and craft beer, and has always been a favourite.  Many a night late in undergrad was wiled away at Bukowski’s over a bottle or two of Koff with a good friend and/or roommate; at the time it was offered both regular and aged 3 years, which was also my introduction to vertical tasting.

When we moved back to Chicago in 2008, I found a couple bottles on sale, which I quickly snatched up to squirrel away for a while.  In late 2009, at a hang with friends Joe, Ted, and Michael (and respective girlfriends), we did a vertical tasting of a “fresh” bottle and one of the bottles from the previous year.  The results were pretty stunning; while the fresh bottle was excellent, the smoothness of the aged bottle went above and beyond.

The other 2008 bottle, along with one from 2009, have been hanging out in my reserve collection ever since, along with a bottle of a clone I made in early 2010.  We meant to do another tasting that winter, but it never worked out; we did do a great vertical tasting of 4 years’ worth of Bourbon County Stout in the late summer before the move west, though.  We’re past due on this, though.  DeAunn loves dark beers and has never said no to a bottle of the real thing or my clone.  Her palate is also much better than mine, and I feel woefully inadequate evaluating beer on my own at this point (the vast majority of my beer would all have the descriptors “bready, crackery, tasty”).  So earlier this week together we did the deed; here are our notes.

Koff (clone, bottled 1.5 years ago)

Appearance - Opaque black with red around the edges when held to the light.  Tight head of fine espresso-coloured bubbles that dissipates after a few minutes.

Aroma - Caramel, sweet, alcohol.

Taste - Mellow, warm roastiness; burnt sugar with a muted bitterness in an aftertaste that really lasts; alcohol is present without being oppressive; very round overall; “yummy”.

Mouthfeel - Light-medium carbonation, medium body.  Fits the mellow flavour well.

Overall - Incredibly satisfying, this has aged very well.  It has a warm mellowness that goes perfectly with the cooling weather.

Sinebrychoff (2-year)

Appearance - Same opaque black, but with less red at the edges.  Head is lighter, more of a dark tan; bubbles are coarse.

Aroma - Winey, grape juice, cola.

Taste - Hop bitterness, sharp alcohol and sweet cola up front, with light roast at the end; kind of a reverse of the clone.  Doesn’t linger.  Definitely complex.

Mouthfeel - Medium carbonation, resulting in a medium-light body.

Overall - Excellent, though very different from the clone.  The extra effervescence works with the sweet cola flavour.

Sinebrychoff (3-year)

Aroma - Same colour as the 2-year.  Low carbonation evident in small, quickly dissipating head.

Appearance - A whole lot of cola, very winey, grapey.

Taste - Exceptionally round, very sweet and malty; lots of dark fruit (plums, prunes); syrupy, but with a firm bitterness in the middle; longer aftertaste than the 2-year.

Mouthfeel - Low carbonation, medium body.

Overall - An easy sipper, definitely an improvement over the 2-year; complex, with lots to savor.

Koff (Sinebrychoff Porter clone)

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.086
Projected SRM: 54.8
Projected IBU: 27.0
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 77%

Grains
65.1% - 10.25 lb Munich
19.0% - 3 lb Vienna
9.5% - 1.5 lb Carafa III
6.4% - 1 lb Caramunich III

Hops
.5 oz Tradition (4.6%) (60 min)
.5 oz Brewer’s Gold (9.7%) (60 min)
.5 oz Saaz (3.5%) (30 min)

Yeast
WY2124 Bohemian Lager - cake

Water additions (mash)
1 1/8 tsp    Baking soda
½ tsp        Salt

Brewday: 3 March 2010
Mash in: 154F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6.75 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15̊P (1.061)

Pitched onto yeast cake at around 40̊F

6 March 2010
Happily fermenting away in the swamp cooler; ambient temp kept 45-50̊F

15 March 2010
Fermentation slowed, brought upstairs for d-rest

Secondary/lagering: 28 March 2010
FG: 1.022
8.25% ABV

Bottled: 9 May 2010
Bottled with 3.5 oz table sugar

Utah Beer Tasting

This evening DeAunn and I sampled three offerings from two of Utah’s premiere breweries, Epic and Uinta Brewing Companies.  While not all of the beers we tried were necessarily to our tastes, they all were flavourful and worth trying; at least two of them we’ll have to try again.

Epic Brewing’s Sour Apple Saison: Voluminous cumulous head on a golden bodied beer.  Big wheat & nearly hefeweizen aroma.  Did not taste of sour apple, but big estery quality of Saison Dupont (of which we’re not really fans; in yeast terms, we both prefer French to Belgian saison strains).  Lots of light fruit and a quenching finish, but overwhelmed by an almost celery flavour we get from wit yeasts.  Not our favourite.

Epic Brewing’s Brainless With Cherries: Small white head that dissipates even on pouring with a rich ruby beer.  Aroma starts with big cherry, but later transitions to a metallic aroma.  Flavour is heavily toward a Duvel-type Belgian golden strong; some cherry left late on the tongue.  Alcoholic, to be sure; tasty, and worth another sampling.

Uinta Brewing’s Crooked Line Series - Cockeyed Cooper Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine Ale: Pours deep amber with little head.  Aroma of heavy bourbon and bittering hops; smells like it weighs in as a young Sierra Nevada Bigfooot.  In tasting, though, it’s much more mellow; heavy bittering hops are subdued with a boozy, malty flavour coming through.  Finish is relatively bitter, but very enjoyable.  Definitely worth having young, and possibly putting away for a year and trying against a fresh bottle.

Mad Elf clone - 1-year Tasting & Recipe

While shuttered inside against the thundersnow a few evenings ago, I sampled one of the last bottles of a clone beer I brewed a little over a year ago.  The original, Mad Elf Ale, is the winter seasonal by Tröegs Brewing Company, based in my old home state of Pennsylvania.  Mad Elf is a Belgian strong ale, brewed with cherries and honey with a spicy Belgian yeast character.  I’d read about it, but lacking distribution this far west, it took a while to get hold of some to taste (which happened when my parents headed back to PA for a visit last winter).  In the meantime, I put together my recipe based on thoughts and suggestions on the Northern Brewer forum and got to brewing.  I was pretty happy with how it came out; not exactly like the original, but in the ballpark, and a good winter ale to help brace against the cold weather.  And at such a high ABV (12.3%), it made an excellent candidate for aging.

The past year has been very kind to this beer; the flavours have mellowed and blended, and the fruit is very forward, particularly in the nose.  The next night I sampled a year-old bottle of the commercial beer; it was good, but the yeast was dominant over the cherry.  I just wish I had more of these squirreled away!


Mad Elf clone - 1 year old

Appearance
Murky red-orange-brown with chill haze; off-white head that dissipates within a minute or two.

Aroma
Big cherry dominates, sweet with a hint of tart; some yeasty esters.

Taste
The vinous quality has developed pleasantly.  The alcohol has mellowed; it gently warms but doesn’t burn.  Definite Belgian yeast character, followed by cherry at the end and lingering in the nose for a short time.

Mouthfeel
Medium body; moderate-high carbonation keeps it from been too thick and syrupy

Overall
Remarkably drinkable for such a big beer; nicely mellowed after a year.  While alcohol is present, certainly doesn’t taste as big as it is.  A half glass is plenty, though; it’s still a sipper.

Recipe - Mad Elf clone


Projected OG: 1.114
Projected SRM: 15
Projected IBU: 17
Brewhouse efficiency: 71%

for 3 gallons:

Grain/Fermentables
10 lb    Belgian Pale
2 lb    Belgian Munich
2 lb    Honey (KO)
5 lb    Frozen Sour Cherries (secondary)

Hops
1 oz    Hallertau (3.8%) (150 min)

Yeast
WY1762 Belgian Abbey II - 3L starter

Starter: 13 September 2009
3L w/ 10 oz Light DME

Brewday: 14 September 2009
Mash in: 17 qts @ 152̊F for 60 minutes.
2 ½+ hour boil - ran out of propane, had to boil on stovetop.

Pre-boil volume: 5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 16.3̊P (1.066)
Volume: 3 gallons
OG: 27.2̊P (1.115)

Chilled with IC, then overnight in cold water bath.  Starter had been crash cooled all day on ice, then placed in fridge overnight.

Wort temp: 65̊F.  LHBS suggested temp of 68̊F for full fermentation; may let it go (up to 75̊F) after a few days.  Will need to condition warm to finish fermentation; keep yeast in suspension!

Secondary: 7 October 2009
Spent 2+ weeks jogging fermenter multiple times a day to keep yeast in suspension; no activity noted in airlock for some time.
SG: 1.023 - 80% attenuation.
Beer tastes fairly solventy right now; give it a long secondary/tertiary/bottle aging before drinking.

Bottled: 13 November 2009
FG: 1.027
Bottled with 2.5 oz cane sugar in solution and a partial pack of rehydrated Muntons yeast.

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At five years old, this beer was past its prime, unfortunately.