Not All Ideas Are Good Ideas...

I know a lot of us bloggers have a tendency to highlight our successes and minimize our failures. Looking at my own blog I see that my notable failures rarely make the roster, while my successes tend to get highlighted. So to even the scales somewhat, herein I present the results of my worst idea of 2015...

The recipe itself was merely a footnote in a previous post; a slight deviation of my normal cider recipe - in place of good o'l Nottingham yeast I used a Belgian yeast (safale T-58). The idea was simple, and its an idea I think remains sound. Simply put, I was hoping that the fruity character of the Belgian yeast would accent is apple flavors of the cider, while the phenolics would create a character like a spiced/mulled cider. On paper it was a winner; in practice is was a real loser.

Aroma: Smells like cider; apple plus a slight yeasty note.

Appearance: Golden, slight yeast haze

Flavor: A conflicting and poorly balanced mix of flavors. About the only thing that is right is that the finish is dry - which is how I like my ciders. After that, it all goes wrong. The most obvious 'flavor' is a clash between the apple notes of the cider must and the stone fruit character of the yeast. Yes, in hindsight it is pretty obvious that apple would clash with the raisin/date/dried fruit note of the yeast, but that didn't enter my thought process when planing out this recipe. But if that were not enough, the spice character of the yeast also conflicts - as in this beast is a Mexican standoff of three conflicting flavors. In place of the (hoped for) clove character I instead have a stale "5-year old cheap pumpkin spice" character. The sort of thing you would expect from jar of budget-bin mixed spices found in the back of your spice cabinet (or in any starbucks-branded scone). In other words, the flavor was that of apples fighting with dates, fighting with something akin to an unnamed brand of underarm deodorant. Either of the former two would be OK, but the three together are wrong, wrong and wrong.

Mouthfeel: Its a cider, so its dry and crisp. Even poor yeast selection couldn't screw that one up.

Overall: Disappointment in a glass. Sort of like liquefying every date you ever had in middle-school - not overly good, but hidden potential was there. I don't think the concept itself is flawed, but T-58 is not the yeast to make this work.

Its Lager Time!

40L in the pantry

This is going to be a long post...but I swear there is a recipe and brew day in here somewhere.

Many, many, many years ago I lived in a much colder part of the country, and I frequently brewed lagers. I now live in a warmer part of the country, and no longer brew lagers. The reason for that change in my brewing practices is entirely due to the weather...and how I used to lager. No fridge for me, all I had was months of below-freezing weather, a cheap bimetallic coil thermostat, a heat-lamp, and an insulated cardboard box. In other words, I had a basic fermentation chamber in which the beer sat in a carboy in an insulated box out in the yard, and a thermostat switched on one of those old-school 'red' heat lights to keep the temperature from dropping too low. The disadvantage to the cheap thermostat was a few batches that had a little ice on top, but even those batches turned out pretty good.

In my new home the weeks and weeks of consistent below-freezing temperatures simply does not happen; hell, last week we ranged from a high of 15C (shorts weather for us Canuks) through to -15C (beer freezes solid, we leave the sandals in the closet). Not exactly lager-compatible, given you want to keep temps pretty consistent in the 4C to 12C range...and I'm still too damned cheap to buy a fridge for brewing.

So I've been watching some of the experiments and tests being conducted by the home brew community on altered lager fermentation profiles with great interest. My interest was first tweaked by a Brewing TV video on lager workarounds, which compared 3 different methods ways to "lager" without lagering (my post on this video) . Its a great video so its worth embedding again:


More recently, Brülosophy has done a series of fermentation temperature experiments in which they found that (some) lager yeasts can produce perfectly serviceable beers when fermented at ale temperatures. There are two split-batch experiments using lager yeasts in the series right now (1 and 2), both of which produced lagers (a pilsner and helles respectively) where the warm-fermented lagers could not be distinguished by experienced tasters from their properly (or near-properly) lagered split.

That. Is. Awesome.

The temperature in the
pantry should work.

Its also not a surprise, once you think about it. The whole point of lagering is to suppress ester formation, leading to a very clean tasting beer. And historically, before the advent of pure yeast cultures, lagering would also have limited bacterial spoilage, also aiding in the creation of clean tasting beers. But move forward to today, where we have good cultures of pure yeast, have access to good ingredients, and know other methods to reduce ester formation (namely, good pitch rates and good oxygenation), and its not too much of a surprise that we can now get clean lager-like fermentations without actually lagering.

So I'm talking a page out of Brülosophy's book (and stealing their recipe & yeast), and giving it a go myself. I've taken the pilsner recipe from the first lager temperature experiment at Brülosophy, but am using the Saflager Lager (W-34/70) used in the second lager temperature experiment; mostly because I didn't have enough time to build up a proper sized starter of yeast from my bank in the time between brew-inception to my planned brew-day. Today I am brewing with my wife's uncle/my occasional brew-and-fishing partner, Mike, and so this beer is named after him - Uncle Mike's Pilsner.

Recipe and brew-day notes below the fold.

Black Mamba the Third

Changes from last year - hops & sugar

Ever since planting my own hops back in 2013 it has become a tradition to brew a black rye IPA, the Black Mamba (recipe: year 1, year 2), using all of the Cascade hops grown in my garden. This year was not as good a harvest a last year, but also nothing to turn your nose up at - 175g of Cascade - and its all going in. As with past years the recipe is being tweaked to try and feature the hop character better (tasting notes: year 1, year 2). The first batch was good, but I didn't have many hops (first year crop & all that), so it was a little lacking. The second year I had a good amount of hops, but the beer was heavier body and too roasty. So this year the recipe is changing quite a bit.

To reduce maltiness I've lowered the mash temperature further (63.5C), elongated the mash to 75 minutes, and replaced ~10% of the gravity with table sugar. To reduce roast I've replaced the debittered dark malt with chocolate wheat malt, which gives less roast character than debittered barley equivalents (midnight wheat would have been better, but was unavailable). The bittering charge has been increased to 48 IBU's of Northern Brewer (up from 34 last year); the remainder of the ~70IBUs are coming from the last-addition home-grown Cascades; 44g additions at 20, 10, 5 minutes, plus a 15 minute hop-stand.

Recipe and Brew-Day notes below the fold

Advent Beer 2015

Way back in September I posted a teaser post on the beer I brewed for my brew clubs annual advent beer exchange. The beer itself is a Bière de Garde based largely on a recipe found in the excellent book American Sour Beers; specifically the Dark Winder Saison I (pg 336). This seemed to be an ideal winter beer - dark & somewhat malty, with rosemary, orange and raisins providing a unique spice character quite different from the classical winter spiced beer. My version differed from the original mainly in that it wasn't soured; rather a house-blend of various Brett's was added for secondary fermentation.

This beer surprised me somewhat - despite 3 months on Brett and oak, there was little funky character in the beer and it remained quite sweet (even though the final gravity was ~1.005). I've held onto a few bottles to see if this would change, but the beer has not picked up much more Brett character, despite an extra 1.5 months in the bottle. Even so, its a good beer, although if I rebrewed it I'd either brew it as a sour, or as a straight Bière de Garde without Brett.

Recipe, Brewing Notes and Tasting Notes below the fold.

It was the worst (of beers) and the best (of beers)

December and January have been nuts, so I'm a little behind on my blogging. Way back in November I brewed what was both the best - and worst - beer of 2015. I very briefly blogged the recipe a few posts ago, but the quick version is that it was a classical American-style IPA, with a touch of bittering hops and then 170 g (6 oz) of hops (1:1 mix of centennial & citra) added in the hop-stand. Fermented with "Brett" trois for 12 days, and then kegged.

My biggest mistake was preparing this beer right-on-time for the keg to be tapped at the same time by brew club began its advent exchange. Having a 29-day series of largely high-alcohol, high-body winter beers does not lend itself well to IPA consumption - meaning that this IPA was consumed far more slowly than it should have been. It started off amazing - best beer of the year. By nearly two months later, when the keg finally kicked, it had faded into something far less desirable.

So how was it (sorry, no pictures)...

Appearance: Extremely cloudy, almost orange in colour. Looked a bit like orange juice. Poured with a course white head that faded pretty quickly into a ring of bubbles around the glass. As anyone whose worked with trois before knows, it simply doesn't flocculate, so clarity only improved slightly as the beer aged.

Aroma: Early on the aroma was 100% tropical fruit; papaya with a touch of mango. It was heavenly, and so intense that the room would fill with the aroma as you poured a glass. This faded fast; a month later it was merely a generic, modest fruitiness, with the clear tropical note completely lost.

Flavour: Early on the flavour matched the aroma - tropical fruit flavours dominated, with a slight malt backbone and modest hop bitterness to hold everything together. If it wasn't for the underlying hop bitterness, this would have been like drinking a glass of papaya & mango juice. Personally, I wish it was a little more bitter in order to balance the fruit "sweetness" from the hops a little better, but just a slight boost in bittering would be needed to achieve that. As with the aroma, the flavour did not age well; within a month the clear tropical flavour note had faded to something almost cider-like, with the added 'bonus' of also tasting "dead" (for lack of a better descriptor). Both the fresh and aged beer had a lingering hop bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Everything an IPA should be - crisp & effervescence, somewhat drying, and with a lingering hop bitterness. The mouthfeel was about the only thing not negatively affected as the beer aged.

Overall: When fresh, this was easily the best beer of the year and one of the better IPA's I've made in a while. After a month this was a piddling IPA at best. In the future this would be a beer to prepare for an event - to ensure it disappears quickly - but it is a beer I would love to re-brew.

2015 - A Year in Review

2015 is coming to a close, so is time for the annual look back.

The Good...
The blog is still getting a reasonable number of hits (155K as of today), but the youtube channel is doing really well and, if trends remain the same, will have more hits than the blog in roughly 5 months. No infected batches this year, and instead, I've brewed two of the best beers I recall making - These Gose Christmas, and an unnamed IPA I haven't bothered blogging about yet (and whose keg is nearly empty).

I also brewed batch #300 this year; a pretty notable milestone. Granted, I did not know at the time that it was batch #300, so in place of brewing something good I instead brewed a rather bland pale ale that didn't even warrant a blog entry (and even being beer #300, still doesn't warrant a blog entry).

The Bad...
Brewing output is down - all in (wine + cider + beer) I managed a paltry 14 batches this year. In my defence I did a compete tear-down and rebuild of my basement, plus added a giant new deck on the house. But the brewery (and my back) suffered as a consequence.

The Ugly...
Unlike last year, I get to leave the ugly slot empty this year. And that, folks, counts as a victory.

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Some Quick Stats

• Most popular post of 2015: Choosing the correct probiotics for souring beer.
• Most commented post of 2015: Tie = Choosing the correct probiotics for souring beer & Easy Yeast Banking
• Most popular video of 2015: Your Home Yeast Lab Made Easy - Making Agar Plates
• Top Viewing Countries of 2015 (Ranked #1 to #5): USA, Russia, Canada, Israel, Brazil
• Top Traffic Sources of 2015: Milk the Funk, Google, Facebook, forum.beerfans.ru.

My Favourite Blogs of 2015

(in no particular order)

• |Brülosophy|
• Beer Flavored
• Sour Beer Blog
• Eureka Brewing
• Suregork Loves Beer

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Whats Coming Up in 2016?

December 9, 2016. And no, this isn't because its the 51st anniversary of 'A Charley Brown Christmas' (originally released Dec 9, 1965). Nor is it a celebration of the eradication of small pox (Dec 9, 1979). Nor is it a celebration of the birthday of actress Judi Dench (best 'M' of the Bond series, so far). Rather, it is the 20th anniversary of my first brew day! I've already brewed the beer to be consumed on that day...and I'm planning on the same day of re-brewing that first beer (although hopefully making a more palatable batch this time)...

Tasting Notes - Well There Gose Christmas

Picture doeen't do it justice; In the
right light the beer is medium-red,
and the head pink..

 A few weeks ago I blogged a recipe of a Christmas-themed Gose that I was brewing - flavoured with hibiscus, orange, cranberry and cinnamon, this was intended to be a unique Christmas beer for my winter enjoyment. So its time for some tasting notes.

I knocked this f***er out of the park. Hell, this may be the best kettle-soured beer I have ever produced.

Appearance: Red. The beer pours with a distinctive red coloured body; not the red of a melanoidin-rich barely based beer, but really really red. Crayon red. The wheat portion of the beer makes itself apparent in the haziness of the beer; combined with the red colour the effect is unexpected and visually pleasing - sadly, my shoddy camera work doesn't do it justice. The head itself is white with tinges of pink. Its highly carbonated, so the head pours thick and fine, and lasts for most of the pint.

Aroma: The cranberries dominate the aroma, with their unique sharp fruit character, along with a notable lactic aroma, shining through. Behind that is the sweet/berry aroma of hibiscus, a slight bready character, and a hint of yeastiness.

Belgian lace lasts right to the end

Flavour: This is where this beer shines. Up front is a bracing lactic sourness. The "tang" of the cranberry works alongside this, creating an overall "sourness" far more complex than what you normally get with a kettle sour, and yet retaining the clean sour profile that characterizes kettle soured beers. The hibiscus really acts to balanced this acidity through providing a sweet note - some sort of unfermentable glycoside, I assume - along with emboldening the fruit character provided by the cranberries. The orange plays a minor background role, giving a subtle orange-zest character noticeable mostly in the aftertaste. It took a number of test batches to dial-in the salt level to a level I like - and its perfect for this beer. The salt is present, but subtle. It acts more to tie the flavours together and to mellow the beer; the taste of salt is present, but mostly as a flinty character rather than an overt saltiness.

The only thing missing is the cinnamon. But given how wonderful the beer turned out, its absence is a blessing rather than a flaw.

Mouthfeel: Complex is the best description I can give. The beer was brewed to have a light body and be highly effervescent - and it is. The low finishing gravity combined with high carbonation and acidity creates a prickly, light mouthfeel on the tongue, especially as the beer enters the palate. But the salt works in opposition, rapidly adding a fuller, more meaty mouthfeel as the effervescence fades. The aftertaste is a mix of hibiscus sweetness/fruitiness, cranberry "tang" and lactic sourness, and fades in a way which leaves you wanting more.

Overall: If it isn't apparent already, this is a damned good beer. My second-best of the year (#1 to be blogged about soon), likely my best kettle-soured beer of all time, and in all honesty, one of the better sour beers that I've made recently. What it lacks in traditional sour-beer complexity is more than made up for by the interplay of the hibiscus, cranberry, acidity and salt. It is eminently drinkable, and yet, complex enough to be enjoyed slowly in front of a Christmas fire. There are four minor tweaks I would make upon re-brewing: 1) drop the cinnamon completely, 2) increase the hibiscus by 20-30%, 3) use the zest of an additional orange (3 instead of 2), and lastly, 4) brew a double, triple, or even quadruple sized batch. Because there's no way any of this beer will be left by Christmas!