Many years ago, the winter of 2000 to be exact, I was deep in the jungles of Vietnam sipping a sweet nectar they called “Tiger Beer.” We would ask “toi un Tiger beer, moi lom lom” and they would come back with a cold (for Vietnam standards anyway) Tiger Beer for us. There were other beers there in Vietnam, Saigon Beer for example, but none of them had the flavor of the blue bottle.
Since that wonderful trip in 2000, I don’t recall ever having Tiger beer again. I always knew I could get it if I wanted it, but for some reason I avoided it. That was until I received a fateful offer by Melissa Tavss from The Baddish Group to try some Tiger Beer on the house. Having been so long and with the changes in my tastes over the years, I had to try it. Would it live up to the memories? Would the flavor of this beer take me back to the Mekong Delta watching long shabby fishing boats putter around with the mountains in the back ground? Would I smell the exhaust of thousands of two stroke motor scoots and hear the constant stream of beeps that turned into white noise? Who knows, but I had to find out!
So I took Ms. Tavss up on her offer and asked to send along a sample. Within days there was a box waiting for me and I have to say, I haven’t been this excited about a tasting in a VERY long time. Now one sits, chilling waiting to be drank. Will rediscover and old fond love or will my memories be dashed by a pedestrian beer? Time to find out…
I personally have decided that brewing will always just be a hobby for me, but I know there are many of us out there that have visions of finding a way to brew for a living. Tim Butler of Empire Brewing Company has found a way to pull that off. A long time ago, he was a dreamer like many homebrewers, now he is a premier brewer in the region. Just check out this video:
Since the weather was starting to pick up and it seems like we’re finally there (at least until this past weekend when it rained the whole time), its time for a Belgian Wit again! For this brew, I turned back the clock to the very first Belgian Wit I had brewed called “Mulligan Wit” which was an extract brew from 2006. It was wildly popular and has been the topic of many conversations so I decided to make an all-grain version and do my best to stick to the recipe. Here is what I came up with
7lbs US 2Row Pale Malt
5lbs Wheat Malt
4.2oz Flaked oats
1lb Belgian candy sugar (45min)
1oz UK Goldings Hops (60min)
.5oz Czech Saas (15min)
1oz Bitter Orange peel (half at 15min and half at 3min)
.5oz ground coriander (15min)
.25tsp crushed cumin seeds
1tsp crushed grains of paradise
Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier
Since it was going to be a rainy Sunday anyway, I decided to take my time and brew later than usual. I started not long after 10:30am and finished at about 2pm. This was a 5 gallon batch with relatively simple set up so I was lazy and decided to skip the starter.
I still set my recipes at 65% efficiency although it seems like I am doing better than that with my new grain mill. More to come on that…
I struck with 4 gal of water at 175f which made my mash about 153f, slightly above my target 151f, but I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it. I ran a fly sparge with an additional 4gal of water at 185f which successfully raised my mash bed temp to 168f. My sparge ran for about 25min before finishing off. For the second time since I got my pH meter, I did a pH reading. This one was 5.9. I am not quite at the point of doing anything about, just trying to get the reading process into by brew day.
I was able to reach a boil not long after the sparge was finished because I have been keeping my wort on heat while I run off. This is a huge help on time and its made a lot easier when only brewing 5gal. Everything else pretty much followed schedule, but there was one thing that kept throwing me off.
Like many brewers, I am paranoid that something is broken so I take readings with multiple devices. I use a hydrometer and a refractometer, I used a digital and a dial thermometer and so on. In this case I took a readying of the pre-boil gravity with my refractometer and saw that I was at 15brix or about 1.060 (way above the projected 1.044). However, when I took a hydrometer reading, I was at 1.044. I was puzzled but just assumed that I had measured the refractometer too hot or something.
Later, when I was getting the OG, my refractometer was reading 1.066 (16brix) while my hydrometer was reading 1.046. Suddenly I noticed that the paper in the hydrometer had slid out of place, thus explaining the discrepancy. With that in mind, my efficiency was more in the ball park of 80%, an obvious huge difference. This seems a little out of place so I am going to start to scale my recipes slightly to the more accepted 75% given the change. This explains a lot because my last few brews seemed a little stiff.
All and all it was a great brew day; fairly uneventful and productive. I am interested in seeing how this one turns out. More to come! Cheers
Tonight I kegged up my IPA and I have to say, it’s the best IPA I’ve made. To make something good even better, I added two ounces of whole leaf hops that I grew in my back yard into the keg for a nice dry hop.
The picture below is a little comtraption I came up with to try and keep the hops from clogging up the keg. It’s a stainless steal strainer that I poked a hole in to allow the stem through. If I am lucky, this will keep the hops out of my glass. We’ll see if it works, but it seemed like as good an idea as I have had for dealing with this.
The dry hops are cascade. The brew is already plenty bitter, so I would love to get some great grapefruit flavors and a huge hops aroma. Cheers.
This weekend, with the help of a newbie, I brewed up an Imperial IPA. I had some UK 2 row left and a crap load of Cascade hops so, whats a man to do? Imperial IPA. Beyond the preset ingreints, I was pretty open to whatever might need to be in the brew. I went to Sunset Hydroponics for my supplies and I was really happy with both the prices as well as the selection of supplies. I didn’t go there with a recipe, I just knew I wanted an IPA to use up some of my hops.
The recipe I came up with is the following:
16lbs UK 2-Row
1lb 60L Crystal
1lb Biscuit
1lb Carapils Dex
1/2lb 120L Crystal
The hops setup was aggressive to say the least:
Columbus 1oz 60min
Centennial 1oz 60min (homegrown)
Cascade 2oz 60min
Cascade 2oz 30min
Cascade .8oz 15min (homegrown)
Cascade 2.2oz Flame out (homegrown)
That’s a 109 IBU Imperial IPA that is going to be a good one! With the help from Mike, my brew pupil for the day, I had a very productive brew day where the following was hit:
Preboil: 1.072
OG: 1.076
Efficiency: Something like 70%
The whole brew day started at 9am and ended at just before 2pm. Mike and I managed to also bring my dishwasher into the house where I installed it after a full brew day. Not too bad. So far, the name I’ve come up with for the beer is “The C-Word Imperial IPA” but I’m not totally sold on that. Any ideas?
Aroma – sweet vanilla notes with a floral hops, defiantly a lot of cascade in the nose.
Color – light copper color with an off-white head, the head holds up early and leaves thin lacing.
Mouth feel – Intense carbonation burn on the tongue, it feels like a bottle conditioned brew and it’s been on the shelf for a while.
Taste – There is citurs in the flavor, not gapefruit though, more of a lemon or lime flavor. The bitter hops punch is intense in the front, oddly complamenting the intense carbonation, and fades fast leaving a full mouth of fresh hops
Over all – There are a lot of things to like about this beer, it’s the reason I decided to do a harvest ale. It’s great to have a harvest ale in the gray funk of winter, its a hint of things to come when the snow melts. This beer lives up to the expectations. It’s got a full hops experiece that washes clean and leavs you wanting another sip. It’s refreshing for the volume of hops and, minus the overwhelming carbonation, its great on the mouth.
Mine
Aroma – There are notes of citrus and lemon, nothing too overwhelming though.
Color – Very similar to the SN, it’s a light copper, plenty of clarity. There is an off white head with significant staying power, it’s creamier and thicker than the bottle of SN, but that might just be that it’s off tap.
Mouth feel – Thin and clean, no real carbonation burn or lingering hops paste.
Taste – It tastes thin, lacking in the substance that the SN has. I like the hops profile throughout, but the malt profile is weak and doesn’t hold up to the refreshing experience that the fresh hops creates.
Over all – This is a good beer, thin and a light session beer, but otherwise a tasty treat. If I had to do it again, I would be sure to get up into the 1.060 range for the OG so that there is some good backbone. The thin feel is really unsettling when you first drink it, but over a short time, it’s really becomes appealing.
Head to head
Well as always, SN really hit the nail on the head. With that said, I like the way that my hops came off better than SN. Mostly because it is really light on the bitterness and allows you to appreciate the nuances of the hops. The SN has a more balanced beer that would legitimately qualify as an IPA with a touch of love. It’s got some genuine bitterness to give it depth and properly balanced with the more robust malt backbone.
It’s a challenge for next year, make a bigger beer, keep the hops the same and maybe throw a little early bitter hops to give the mouth the proper hopps experience. Over all though, I am very pleased with the beer and how it turned out. I am defiantly doing this brew again.
It’s time again! It was a cold brew day (it’s been a cold brew winter) and I did a basic 5 gallon brew. I had the chance to try out a few of my new Christmas toys, a new grain mill and an awesome pH meter. So to begin, I got a recipe from the book my wife got me, it’s called Drunk Munk Doppelbock:
10lbs UK 2 Row Pale Malt
2lbs Carapils malt
2lbs light Munich malt
8oz Chocolate malt
4oz Black malt
1lb Hard Dark Candy Sugar
2oz German Tettnang 60min
1oz Czech Saas 5min
Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager
The target gravity is 1.075, with a decoction mash. The strike temp was 131f for 30min, I drew 1/3 of the mash off for decoction and reintroduced the decoction into the mash for 151f.
The whole mash was about 90min and was a little low on the temps because the weather pretty cold that day. The OG was right on point with 1.075 and after 17 days in the primary at 55f, it’s been racked over to lager at 45f.
I had a taste of this brew and it will be a good one, the color is a deep mahogany color with plenty of chocolate notes. It’s got a long ways to go, but it’s going to be a good one.
I promise to get better about posting, more to come. Cheers
Since the holiday season is finally officially over, I am getting back to brewing and a few lose ends. More to come on the brewing, but for now, I was the lucky recipient of a surprise package from Flying Dog Brewing Company. This isn’t a first, I have reviewed Flying Dog per-request by the brewery in the past, and to be honest I didn’t think I would be getting any more samples based on my review.
However, they decided to try to woo me with another brew, and this time it was a success. The package came as a surprise to me in December. I had seen the Raging Bitch, Belgian Style IPA out and about, but hadn’t broken down and gotten any yet.
A quick overview, this is called a Belgian-Style IPA which I assume means that they ferment an IPA with Belgian yeast, but I am not sure. Either way, it was a great brew. The aroma was vanilla with hints of banana and coriander. The spices I assume are the result of the Belgian yeast. The hops as listed on the website are Warrior, Columbus and Amarillo with a reported IBU of 60. The ABV is listed as 8.3% and is very apparent in the mouth feel. There is a recognizable after burn, but not offensive and nothing you wouldn’t expect from a brew of this size. It’s a light copper color, almost suede or camel, not overly dark with a touch of red. There is some cloudiness in the beer that is another sign of it’s Belgian styling.
The flavor is deep, warm and full. There are tiny fruit notes and a tinge of hops bitterness that ends the flavor. The front-end is really dominated by the vanilla (Columbus hops I assume) and maltiness you expect from a Belgian brew. This beer is great. I loved the vanilla with all the fruity notes, it was all done in a grace and harmony that made this an enjoyable beer.
Over all, I would say they hit this one out of the park. In the past I have not been satisfied with Belgian IPA’s because they don’t balance the flavors that make the Belgian beers so wonderful with the power of the hoppy IPA. Flying Dog breaks that barrier for me and delivers the beer that I had hoped for in a Belgian IPA, balance, complementary hops and an emphasis on the brilliance of the Belgian yeast. Big score for Flying Dog, great beer and I highly recommend it! (I’ll be grabbing a sixer before long)
More to come this week, I will be brewing Saturday, time to revisit the Doppelbock.
That right, the days are getting shorter, the leaves have fallen. It’s time to break out the high octane brew! In this case, it’s my second iteration of Wilford’s Best Oatmeal Stout. This time, I am doing the same volume, but splitting it with my brother-in-law as his first homebrew batch. It was a great brew day, a little chill in the air, we hit all of our temps and things worked out well. In fact, things worked out so well, we had fantastic efficiency. Below are the details on the recipe:
26lbs UK 2 row
3lbs Flaked oats
1.5 lbs roasted barley
1lb Chrystal 120L
.5lb Chocolate malt
1oz Warrior (60 min)
1oz Northern Brewer (30 min)
1.5 oz homegrown cascade (10 min)
Wyeast American Ale Yeast 1056
If you decided to go back and take a look at the recipe from last year, you’ll notice that I used 3lbs roasted barley for the flavor malt on this recipe. After I received some tough love from the brew club, I took some of the advice I received and decided to diversify the flavor malts. As a quick overview, I was previously seeking to simplify my recipes to gain a better respect for what I was adding into the beer.
In this recipe, I wanted some notes of chocolate, some toffy and the mouth-feel you get from a good oatmeal stout. I decided that the ratio of specialty malts to base malt was good, so I decided to break up the amount over three ingredients leaving roasted barley as still the dominant flavor malt (as I was generally very happy with my beer last year, I just wanted some depth).
So, as you can see from the pictures above, I have racket the brew over. The brew day itself was really successful, we did a two batch sparges with, the first running was 22brix, the second was 15 brix and the final running was 11 brix. This made for a 1.070 OG and is going to make for a nice winter brew to start the cold season.
It finished off at 1.010 and had a great taste. More to come on that, but thing biggest thing I noticed was that there was a slight burn on the way down from the high ABV, but it was slight and I think once there is some carbonation and cold, it won’t be noticeable.
More to come on this brew, but Wilford Brimley is back!
Just a quick update on my hard cider. It finished really tart and dry. In years past when I made hard cider with Nick, we would heat a small amount of the cider before fermentation and add our adjuncts. When we did that, we liked the beer, but it was not exactly what we were looking for. After some research, I decided to change things up this time.
The other school of thought when it comes to cider is to ferment and then flavor your cider to taste. This time I decided to try that method.
To figure out the amount that I wanted to add to the cider to have the flavor I was looking for, I grabbed 8oz (80 x 8oz = 5 gallons) and added amounts of brown sugar for sweetness, cinnamon, nutmeg and crushed coriander for some flavor. With the amounts that I figured out on my 8oz sample, I multiplied by 80 to scale my flavor to 5 gallons, simple enough.
In the end, this is what I added to an otherwise VERY tart cider:
3.5 cups of brown sugar
3 tbs of cinnamon
2 tsp of nutmeg and coriander
With the brown sugar, I took about 36oz out of the bucket and heated it to about 135f (both to dissolve the sugar and sanitize) and added that back to the bucket. With the spices, I added them to about 4oz of vodka to add some more zest and sanitize.
I leaned on the side of more tart than sweet as I have a bit of a sweet tooth and tend to over-do the sugars. The flavor was great, but you never know until you get some carbonation on it. We’ll see, but I think I took some bite off of the tart as well as giving it some depth.
Now I just have to wait for it to clear up and carbonate.
On another note, I kegged my harvest ale. I tasted it and it is going to be awesome! In the future I might want to give it some more malt backbone, but the current profile really accentuates the fresh hope.
CNY stands for Central New York for anyone who doesn't know. I am located in the Syracuse area and enjoy homebrewing beer. I've been brewing since 2002 and currently I all-grain brew most of my beer. I make a lot of gadgets and try to document them as well as possible on this site. I also try to document recipes and brewing techniques. Hope you have fun and remember to relax and have a homebrew!
