Well, There Gose Christmas!

Nearly 2 months ago I blogged a teaser post on the brewing of my 2015 Christmas brew that would be entered into my home brew club's advent event, and given to my beer-loving family and friends.

This post is not about that beer.

Rather, this post is about another winter-holiday themed beer that is both a product of long planning (and fantasizing), plus a bit of last-minute brew-wizardry to make the brew-day happen. Sadly, I have no images of this last-minute brew, as I've recently taken a page from a fellow home-brewers book (hi, Devin!) and begun brewing late at night. Yep, 7 PM - midnight brew "days" do get you around all those irritating day-time things (jobs, family, friends, etc), but make for crappy photo-shooting conditions.

I wish I could claim this recipe as my own, and to some extent it is, but I received a lot of help on this one. The initial motivation for this beer is the table of Gose recipes by Cascade brewing in American Sour Beers; specifically, the all-to-brief mention of the winter gose featuring cinnamon, orange, hibiscus and cranberry. While a gose is a pretty straight-forward sour-ketteled beer, the balance of orange & hibiscus came from a very helpful set of  private messages and public posting of a similar gose recipe by BigPerm over at HomebrewTalk. The remaining balance of cinnamon, cranberry, hops and salt are from my previous brewing experiences with gose and those particular ingredients.

Despite that, there was (of course) a bump in the road. I had planned on souring using Lactobacillus isolated from a bottle of Hottenroth. Unfortunately, the lacto culture got "infected" with yeast (you know you're not a normal brewer when the yeast is the infection), so I was forced to preare a last-minute lacto starter using 1.040 wort @ pH 4.5, a handful of grain, and a "homebrewed" incubator to keep the cultures at 44C. The last-minute starter worked, so the brewday(s) was/were saved.

Additional details and recipe can be found below the fold.

Yeast v Bacteria

I occasionally get e-mails (and forum posts) asking questions about identifying yeast versus bacteria in microscopy images. I'm just posting this here as an example of what an average yeast looks like compared to an average bacteria.

At the top of the image is a cluster of a normal yeast strain - Wyeast 1007 (German ale). They are slightly out-of-focus as I was trying to get the bacteria into focus. At the bottom of the cluster are two budding yeasts, in the middle is another budding yeast which is budding upwards (hence why the small bud is in-focus) and there is a non-budding yeast in the upper-left corner of the cluster. The "strand" extending upwards is a clump of trub.

The bacteria is an 'average' bacteria (E. coli, which you hopefully will never see in your beer), but which I added to this sample as a comparator.

Happiness is a Bubbling Carboy...Training Wheels CPA

Go yeast go!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to teach my SWIMBO's uncle how to brew. Because teaching a new brewer the ropes makes for a busier brew-day I didn't have time to blog the recipe...so here is is a week late.

This recipe is pretty straight forward - a Canadian Pale Ale, which much like history, is a blend of English and American influences. Namely, it incorporates the more interesting malt profile of an English ale, but hopped with "new" American-style hops at a modest (modest, how Canadian!) rate. Hopefully a beer I will enjoy, but not too crazy for a new brewer/light beer drinker.

The Recipe:
The recipe is dead-simple, for 40 L (10 US gallons):

• 8 kg Canadian pale ale malt (Maris Otter would be a good substitute)
• 0.45 kg Caramunich I
• 0.45 kg Caramunich II
• Enough bittering hops (14.8 g of Northern Brewer @ 8.5%) at 60 min to get to 36 IBU after late additions.
• 28 g of a 50:50 mix of Citra + Centennial whole hops at 15, 10, 5 minutes before the end of the boil + a final 15 min whirlpool addition (i.e. 112 g total)
• Irish moss, 15 min before the end of the boil
• Safale US-05 (2 packs)

Mash @ 66.7C (152F) for 60 min, then sparge & boil for 60 min. If everything goes right, the beer should come in at 36 IBU, SG of 1.049, ~9 SRM.

Ferment started in my pantry, which sits at ~16 C (~60 F) for 5 days, followed by moving it next to the furnace for the final 5 days at ~20 C (~68 F). As you can see above, even at 16 C the ferment was pretty active. The expected FG (1.010) was hit in 4 days, but there is still some bubbling going on, so it may drop a little lower.

The Brew Day:

Brew day was completely, totally and utterly uneventful. Which, given this was a brewday where I was teaching someone how to brew, was exactly what I was hoping for. We slightly exceeded our expected gravity (1.051), and hit our planned volume dead-on. The beer was chilled to 25 C, and then split between 2 x 23L (6 US gallon) carboys fitted with blow-off tubes which were transferred to my pantry where it cooled for 5 hours to 17 C, prior to adding the yeast. Five days later I fitted the carboy's with air locks and moved them next to the furnace to ensure diacetyl reduction and complete attenuation. As of today we're 6 days away from brew-day and 5 days prior to kegging. Hopefully, tasting notes will be posted in about 2 weeks!

Tasting Notes - Brett'd Sour Opprobrium

Enjoyed on the last
day of summer

Back in July I brewed a kettle-soured Berliner Weisse, which I split into two batches - one fermented straight with German Ale (Wyeast 1007), which was kegged and carbed within 10 days of brew day. The second half was fermented with the same yeast, but then underwent a secondary fermentation for ~2.5 months with a blend of Wyeast & White Lab's B. claussenii and Wyeast's B. lambicus. Those familiar with those brett strains will see that my goal was to add a nice fruit character to the beer, with a hint of funk.

The non-bretted version turned out pretty good - not quite as sour as I was hoping, but it was very quaffable. So what did the brett do to this beer?

Appearance: Its a Berliner - hazy (although not as hazy as the non-bretted version, likely because of its longer ageing), very pale in colour, and pours with a nice, long-lasting head.

Aroma: A tropical fruit character is apparent, as is a bit of lactic acidity. The bread notes of the unbretted portion are very muted - I don't think I'd notice they were present if I didn't know to look for them.

Flavour: The hoped-for fruit character has come through. The mix of bretts produced a nice fruitiness, although a specific fruit character has not been achieved. There's a bit of citrus and some stone fruit. In addition, a bit of leathery/earthy brett funk has emerged, giving this beer an additional interesting edge. Not only has the brett enhanced the flavour profile, but it also seems to have increased the acidity - I suspect this is an apparent change (rather than more actual acid), likely due to a lowering of the maltiness by the activity of the brett. The acidity balances nice with the fruit and funk, making for a wonderfully balanced beer.

Mouthfeel: Crisp, dry and acidic. Very refreshing. After taste is lactic with hints of fruit.

Overall: A huge improvement over the original - more apparent acidity, a more complex flavour profile, and a more pleasing mouthfeel. While the base recipe could use a little tweaking (in particular, a step-mash to get a more fermentable wort, replacement of some gravity with sugar, and a more aggressive Lactobacillus for the sour-ketteling), the addition of brett was a great way to improve on the beer. I've brewed bretted Berliners in the past, and while this one is not the best of them, it remains a very good beer.

Happiness is a Full Test-Tube Rack

Twenty-six new yeasts for the yeast bank!

Thank you fellow yeast farmers.

Top: 6 bottle cultures
Middle: 14 wild & 6 commercial yeast strains
Bottom: Cryovials to store them all

Dammit . . . err, tasting notes

Didn't take a picture of the beer, so here is a
photo of some of its ingredients instead.

Woe is me - a few weeks ago I brewed a pretty basic rye Saison. The good news is its one of the better beers of 2015; the bad news (and hence the woe) is the keg is now empty, meaning I'm effectively out of kegged beer (although, in my hour of need, I did keg the bretted portion of this years Berliner Weisse...2 months early).

So, how did the saison taste? This is from memory, so hopefully its correct.

Appearance: Pale yellow, almost white. Slightly cloudy, with a thick white head that leaves traces of Belgian lace down the sides of the glass.

Aroma: Classic saison fruitiness + earthyness. Coriander aroma is present, but in the background.

Flavour: Wow - crisp, earthy, fruity. Pretty much the character you'd expect from a classic European saison. Coriander doesn't come through as a clear taste, but rather complements the yeast spiciness. Rye adds a nice crisp flavour to the beer.

Mouthfeel: Because of the rye, this beer has a thicker body and slick mouthfeel which is somewhat off-style - even with a final gravity of 1.004. I gave this beer a higher carbonation level (nearly 3 volumes), which lightened this up somewhat and gave the beer an almost champaign-like acidity which faded as the beer warmed and lost carbonation.

Overall: Overall this was a pretty good beer for the end of the summer - crisp and refreshing, and light but with a lot of flavour. I cycle to work, and this beer was always a welcomed finish to the ride home - especially on the hot and humid days that rounded out August. Aside from the rye this is about as classical a saison as you can make, and had all the character you would expect of a lower-gravity saison. If I were to re-brew this I'd drop half the rye for wheat, but leave the recipe otherwise unchanged - that should retain th rye character, while removing the out-of-place slick mouthfeel.

Teaser - Révolte des Anges

Raisins
(blackened)

Normally, I like to provide all the details of a brewday - recipe, brew notes, etc - on my blog. But today is an exception, as among my blog readers are a number of people whom are also on my Christmas beer-list &/or in my brew clubs advent exchange. And, as you may have guessed, this means I'm brewing this years advent brew today.

True to this years theme (Murphy's law, or perhaps angry weather gods), the second I try a difficult beer nature works against me. My 20% beer brewed last winter took place - of course - on the coldest day of the year. It was so cold that I couldn't get the propane to flow, and ended up performing an ~6 hour boil on my electric stove top. Today's brew is going the other direction; today may be the hottest day of the year, with a humidex of ~40C. While that isn't going to stop me from brewing, it is causing me to lose a lot of sweat.

Blackened raisin puree, orange zest, rosemary
and some good hops.

Any way's, the purpose of today's post is more a teaser for those on my xmas/advent lists than a recipe/brew day. This years xmas/advent beer has some unique elements to it - blackened raisins, orange zest & rosemary to be exact. It's also a funky beer, being brewed with a mix of Bier de Guarde yeast and my house blend of Brettanomyces - a mix of 6 commercial and wild Bretts.

This should be a good beer, and if I recall I'll post the recipe & tasting notes around Christmas-time.