Massive Update

Well I have been super busy, and just a bit lazy about updating the blog. I see that the last real update came in April. I have brewed 5 beers in that time. Four of those beers were served at various celebrations (work party, weddings, and rehearsal dinners). Those 4 beers were all served within a month of each other so I had to be on a tight schedule to make sure that the beers I was providing for the events were ready to go on those special days.

Those beers include the following beers, with quick descriptions. If your interested in any details leave a comment and I will expand:

Blonde: basic recipe, third batch, and it amazes me how awesome this beer comes out, I think this will become my base pale sour beer.

HopBrosia IPA: A basic IPA with all the hops I had that don’t have dank, pine and resin. I wanted a “fruit salad” flavor and aroma. Hopped with Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic, El Dorado, Huell Melon and Galaxy. I also used the Vermont Pale Ale yeasty from the Yeast Bay. The beer was young and it was a bit muddled, but overall a nice drinking beer.

Wedding Day Pale Ale: Basic pale ale recipe of two row, honey malt and victory. Hooped with a CTZ bittering charge, followed by Chinook, Amarillo and a bit of Citra at flame out. Great base malt to balance the nice piney, grapefruit, citrusy hops. Really happy with this one and I will be making the malt profile my base pale ale recipe. I also added grapefruit zest at flame out.

Cerveza de Jamica: This was for a rehearsal dinner that they served Mexican food. I wanted to make a beer that was fun, refreshing and went with the Mexican food theme. I modeled the beer after the traditional Mexican aqua fresca Jamaica (hibiscus flower tea)The base beer was a wit (although this could have been my basic wheat beer recipe) after fermentation ended, I added 1 pound of dried Jamica flowers. The beer instantly turned a bright pink, see the pictures below. I racked off the flowers after two days and then added a hop sack with a whole hand of fresh ginger (sliced), three cinnamon sticks, 5 cloves and 5 all spice rounds. The spices didn’t really stick out to me even after two days in the keg. The beer was magenta in color, tart, refreshing and a huge hit.

I got my results back from the NHC, and my Hoppy Wheat: Hot Curl entered into American Wheat beer got great feedback from the judges, but they said it was too hoppy for the style. It would have been marked down in the IPA category for being cloudy. Not too surprised but I was glad to hear they are expanding several of the BJCP categories. My cucumber saison did well, but unfortunately it didn’t make it to the next round in the veg, beer category. I probably need it too dry out a bit more for a saison.

I have been reading Mike Tonsmeire’s of the Mad Fermentationist Blog new book American Sour Beers: Innovative Techniquesfor Mixed Fermentations. Reading this book has re-inspired me for sour funky brewing that I had stepped away from as of late. Mike’s book is awesome and super helpful. I highly suggest it if you are brewing sours or are thinking about it. It’s a great addition to Jeff Sparrows’  Wild Brews Because of finding my inspiration I have also been messing with my sours that range in age from 5 years to 1+ years. I will post a second update regarding my sours soon.

Looking forward to brewing lots of beer this summer. I start my Doc program in the Fall, so I am not sure how much time I’ll have to brew in the next three years.

Two Session Beers: Session Lager and Grodziskie/Grater

Monday I brewed a couple of low ABV session beers. They were two beers that I had on my brewing agenda for some time, but due to brewing beers for a few obligations I hadn’t had the chance to get around to them.

The first beer I brewed was an interesting experience based on a historic style. My best friend’s mom is Polish and since she was one of the first people to let me try craft beer, and she bought my friend his first homebrew kit (which was essentially ours) I wanted to make a beer in her honor. The beer is called Grodziskie ( and more commonly Gratzer in German), which is a 100% oak smoked wheat beer. After reading about this beer online, in Radical Brewing, and Brewing with Wheat what I gather is that the beer is low in ABV, approximately 3-3.5%, highly hopped (for a historic Continental beer) and is made with 100% oak smoked wheat. I have wanted to brew this beer for a while, but considering that smoking my own wheat malt was not something I wanted to do, I thought I would be out of luck. When I was The Homebrewer, my local homebrew shop the other day I saw that they had oak smoked wheat malt, so I knew it was time to make this beer. I am excited about the oak smoked wheat beer being available, it has a lighter smoke profile than either Rauch malt, or cherry wood smoked malt. My only worry is that since it has a very light smoke profile, the smoke may not stand out enough. I went with one hop addition of northern brewer to get some bitterness, but no flavor or aroma, I want the smoke to stand out in the flavor and aroma. I opted for a Kolsh yeast since it is probably most historically accurate. The beer should be light, refreshing and slightly smoky. Perfect for bbq weather.

Recipe: Weyermann Oak Smoked Wheat, Rice Hulls. German Northern Brewer @ 60. Wyeast 2565 Kolsh Ale Yeast.

The second beer I brewed was a Lil’ Lager. Essentially it is an American Session Lager about 3% ABV and hopped with Nelson and Mosaic. I wanted to build up a healthy amount of lager yeast and I decided what better way to do this than to make a small lager and then re-pitch the yeast into a higher ABV beer at a later date. I pitched 3 packages of dry lager yeast. I kept the malt bill simple and used some non-traditional hops. This will give me a chance to see how these two hops work together.

Recipe: US 2 Row, Flaked Rice, and a dash of Rye and Honey Malt. Nelson @60, Mosaic @ 30, and Mosaic/Nelson at Flameout. Safe Lager 23.

Interesting Read on the 2013 NHC Results

Check it out here

2014 NHC Entries: Hot Curl and Cucumber Saison

I was able to get two spots for this years National Homebrewers Competition. The past two years I have not entered, so I am really excited to be able to get some feedback and hopefully make it out of round 1 again. When I was thinking which beers I wanted to enter I decided I wanted to enter a few beers that I have brewed in the past. The first was my cucumber saison, a really refreshing and drinkable beer that was a huge hit with my friends. The other was my hot curl, hoppy wheat beer. However, for this version I wanted to employ some new hops and make my second attempt at a hop burst hop schedule.  Below are further thoughts on each beer, modifications from the original recipes and the recipes.

Hot Curl Batch 2: Hop Burst Mosaic, Amarillo, Citra version

My Hot Curl recipe was my take on a relatively new style the White IPA or a Hoppy Wheat beer. I have been drinking a ton of Modern Times Fortunate Island and the other day I had Karl Strauss’ Mosaic Wheat. I often add a bit of wheat malt to my beers as I just feel it gives a well rounded flavor and mouthfeel. Since I enjoy Fortunate Islands so much and my first take on Hot Curl was good, but a little one dimesnsional I decided that I would mix up the hops a bit and use the hop bursting technique I used on my last hoppy wheat. I have a pretty good selection of hops right now (Niko brewing has had some great sales). Fortunate Island uses Amarillo and Citra, so I knew I wanted to start there and I also added mosaic since it is supposed to have some awesome fruity properties. I went with an ounce of each at 15, and 2 ounces of Mosaic and Amarillo and 1 ounce of Citra and flameout. I am really hoping that this beer comes out with a huge fruity hop profile. It should be great fresh and it is a pretty easy beer to re-tweak if needed. I thought about suing some Nelson as well, but decided against it since Nelson is so unique.

Recipe: US 2 Row, White Wheat, Honey Malt. Mosaic, Amarillo and Citra @ 15 and Flameout. US-05.

Cucumber Saison Batch 2

Last time I made this beer I made a 10 gallon batch and split it into two 5 gallon batches. One got cucumber and the other jasmine green tea. They were both awesome, but I felt the Jasmine version became too sweet over time. The cucumber version was great fresh and with a bit of age. I may have a hard time finding local organic cucumbers this time of year (last time I used cucs from our Suzie’s Farm CSA). I also decided last time that I will de-seed the cucumbers since I think they gave the beer an weird bitter quality. I may also dry hop the beer with a bit of Sorachi Ace hops. The base beer is a simple light saison. It should be a great beer to transition into spring/warmer weather beers.

Recipe: US 2 Row, White Wheat, Turbinado Sugar, Northern Brewer hops @60, Horizon @ 20 and 0. WYeast French Saison

AD Man Tribute Ales

Dad and Mom

In December my dad announced that he would be retiring from his 30 year career in the Advertising Industry in March. It came as a total surprise to me. I felt since he loved what he did he wouldn't want to retire. However, after talking to him I can tell although he loves the work and the industry, he knew it was time to move on to something else. In addition he gets extra time to spend with my nephews, which I am guessing played a big role in his decision. The owner of the agency and my dad's long time business partner wanted to celebrate my dad's retirement with his "work family" and so he put together a evening to celebrate my dad. In the planning stages I was asked to make some homebrew for the celebration. I talked to my dad and I knew he really enjoyed Deschutes' Brewing Chain Breaker White IPA, so we decide that one of the beers I would make would be a White IPA/Hoppy Wheat Beer. We also talked about an approachable beer that everyone would enjoy. I have made a Belgian Pale Ale in the past and have added Meyer Lemon zest to give it a unique citrus twist, so we decide that would be the second beer. With the holidays I was crunched for time and all of a sudden we were a week away from the celebration. Realizing that I had only 7 days to brew, ferment, and package a beer for serving I started to worry. My Saturday brew day went well (I undershot my gravity on the White IPA) and I was able to knock out the two beers pretty quickly, I didn't have time to make starters so I pitched two packs of yeast, I let the beer ferment until Wednesday night and then racked the beer into the kegs and cranked up the CO2. I shook the kegs and released the glass on a regular basis. On Friday afternoon I packed up the kegs and took them to the party, my fingers crossed that the beer would be carbed enough. To my elation the beers were both carbed and they were big hits among my dad's coworkers. Both kegs blew by the end of the night. The white IPA/hoppy wheat was really tasty and sessionable and it will definitely be a recipe I try again. The Belgian Pale was a huge hit as well. I was originally going to use meyer lemon zest, but I had a gallon Ziploc of frozen juiced meyer lemon rinds from last spring. I threw them in a  mesh bag and added them to the boil the last 10 minutes. The beer came out much more like a lemon beer then a Belgian with a hint of lemon. Luckily it was a wonderfully warm January evening here in San Diego and a lemon beer was perfect.

I congratulate my dad and wish him a wonderful retirement from Advertising and wish him luck in what ever he does next (he says he wants to teach geography at a community college).

Old Oak (A Samael Clone)

I first tried Avery Samaels a few years back at a Avery beer dinner hosted by Small Bar's Scott Blair  and Adam Avery. The beer was paired with the dessert course and it just totally blew me away. I had tried a numb rod Barleywines but most have a strong hop bite. Samaels is a barley wine without the hops. It is sweet, but not cloyingly sweet. It is aged on both raw oak and toasted oak, so I think that the oak balances out the sweetness really well. It is an amazing beer and that night when I tried it, I went home and built a home-brew recipe. I have wanted to brew this beer since that first taste, but I just haven't gotten around to doing it…until yesterday. I decided to make a 3 gallon batch because it is supposed to finish at around 14% abv. I plan on aging this beer on a combination  of raw oak chips and medium toasted oak cubes. I am also planning to bottle this beer instead of kegging it because a 14% beer is a little too big to be on tap. I also figure this beer will age really well. I named it Old Oak because it is simply an Old Ale aged on Oak.

Recipe: US-2 Row, Golden Promise, Crystal 120 and brown sugar. Fuggles @60 and @20, White labs British Ale Yeast.

Saison Rustique

When I first heard the Bruery was making a beer called 7 Grain Saison I got excited. I figured it would be an amber hued beer with a nice malt background, and some spice from the addition of rye. When I tried it, it was hay colored, and very light, crisp and extremely refreshing. To me it seemed much more like a lager than a 7 Grain Saison. Either way this beer got me thinking. Saison's are a old style and were possibly brewed in a very rustic manner, with a malt bill of what the farmhouse brewery had on hand from the harvest, what ever hops they could get and a yeast strain with a rustic and wild profile, most likely including brettanomyces. I started to create my own multi-grain saison, but instead of going the Bruery's direction with a clean and crisp beer, I wanted something that spoke more to the rustic farmhouse style many people associate with classic saisons.

I wanted to include multiple grains, but not make a hot mess of a beer. I started with 2 row, honey malt and then start adding the "other grains".  I then added red wheat, rye malt, flaked rye, Simpsons golden naked oats, flake corn, and brown sugar. I thought about adding some flaked rice, but decided against it based on the flavor of the other grains and how they would probably overshadow the rice. This was also the first beer I have ever used rice hulls on, Because I had so many flaked grains, I wanted to ensure a stuck- less mash.  I did not go very hop forward in this beer which is not my usual approach to saisons, a beer I think really go well with big late American hop additions. I used a more traditional hop, but it will still have a hop presence. I also wanted to use a fun, wild, rustic yeast that had some funk as well as traditional saison flavor profile. I had good luck last year with my Spring Saison and with my Citrus Saison so I decided to use the American Farmhouse Strain again.

The beer came out much darker than Beer Alchemy and I expected. I am not sure why it came out so much darker that expected. Maybe the rye malt gave it some extra color??

Recipe: US-2 Row, Honey malt, Rye malt, Falked Rye, Red Wheat, Flaked Corn, Simpsons Golden Naked Oats, Brown Sugar, Fuggle Hops @60, @20 and @ flameout and WLP American Farmhouse Ale Yeast.