American to German to Cascadian in 6 Weeks

Beer production has been steady these past few weeks, blogging has been slow.  Here's what's been going on:

Handsome Grandson Double Rye IPA (Version 2)

At the beginning of May I did a rebrew of one of my favorite homebrews:  Handsome Grandson Double Rye IPA.  I don't rebrew beers too often but this particular beer went over so well last time that I decided to make it again with minor changes.  The recipe is a riff off of Tasty McDole's Pliny Clone, but with a rye element to make the final taste a little spicier.  It's basically the same as before but without the crystal rye malt and some small hop changes to mix it up a bit; I wanted to use feature Simcoe.  This version came out at 9.3% ABV but tasted like it was 7%.  It's been on tap for almost a month but is almost gone thanks to a couple of growler fills for friends and a few good nights with fellow homebrewers.  If (when) I brew it again, I'll try and dry it out even more.

Excelsior Altbier

I bought a recipe from Midwest Supplies for my brother on his birthday.  He brews when he has time and doesn't have any temperature control so Midwest's saison kit seemed like a good fit for warm summer brewing.  I picked up their Excelsior Altbier in the process (and got free shipping) so it got brewed at the end of May.  It's a Dusseldorf-style recipe so it should be both bitter and malty at the same time with plenty of prominent hop character.  Basically an assertive, flavorful, clean German ale.  Some cold conditioning after primary fermentation and lower than normal ale temperatures should clean it up a bit.  I did a small diacetyl rest just in case, and should have it on tap in another 10 days or so.  I wonder how different a Northern German Altbier would be when tasted side-by-side?  Last time I was in Germany I didn't have the knowledge or palette to explore all that the German beer scene has to offer and I've been regretful since my eyes were opened by homebrew.   I've had mixed results with beer kits but this is my first time sampling the wares from Midwest and I'm optimistic.

Doug Flag Cascadian Dark Ale

Fellow homebrewer and aspiring randonneur, Eric (of Parallel 32 Brewing), took it upon himself to generously host a Summer Homebrew Competition this August.  This is a "friendly" with the main goals being to learn something in the process, drink some interesting beer and fun. We've focused on different styles, colors, and the use of particular ingredients for previous competitions.  The only stipulation this time is the use of WLP 041 Pacific Ale Yeast, a type that's relatively unfamiliar to all participants.

Saving a WLP 041 sample for next time.

Yesterday I brewed a Cascadian Dark Ale for the competition.  While the BJCP has moved to make Black IPA a style variant in the upcoming 2014 revision of the Style Guidelines (Gordon Strong's .ppt presentation here), I tend to think of Cascadian Dark Ale as a better descriptor.  There may even be room for both Black IPA and CDA in the style guidelines, but I don't know if it's necessary.  Cascadian Dark Ales should showcase hops from the Pacific Northwest, include some roasted character but not nearly to the point of a porter or stout, and should feature Sinamar or Carafa or some comparable specialty grain to add color without bitterness.  The final product should be dark brown to black (30 - 40 SRM), smooth and lacking in major astringency, and hoppy in a way that is unusual.  The darker roasted malts should bring out hop flavors that are harder to find in a paler counterpart (like mint, rosemary, or other herbal flavors) using the traditional American IPA hops.  You can really geek out on the semantics discussion by watching the Brewing TV video below.  They do a really nice job of characterizing the style and looking at the naming debate from multiple perspectives.

I wanted to keep my grain bill simple, end up on the low side for SRM, and showcase Mosaic hops (a Simcoe progeny).  My final recipe looks like this, though I wanted to use CaraAroma instead of the Crystal 120 but couldn't get my hands on any.  The Doug Flag in the beer's name refers to the flag of Cascadia, which contains a Douglas fir tree and colors representing the landscape and sensibilities of the Pacific Northwest and its residents.

Doug Flag Cascadian Dark Ale

Malts and Grains

11.50 pounds	American Pale Malt (2-Row)	87.5% of grist
0.60 pounds	German Carafa II De-Husked Malt	4.6% of grist
0.30 pounds	American Chocolate Malt	2.3% of grist
0.75 pounds	Crystal Malt 120L	5.7% of grist
13.15 pounds	Total Grain Weight (Water Amounts)	100% of grist

Hops

1.00 ounces	Chinook 12.8% Pellets  Type: Bittering and Aroma Use: First Wort	12.8 AAUs
1.50 ounces	Columbus 15% Pellets @ 60 minutes  Type: Bittering Use: Boil	22.5 AAUs
0.50 ounces	Mosaic 11.5% Pellets @ 15 minutes  Type: Flavor Use: Boil	5.8 AAUs
0.50 ounces	Chinook 12.8% Pellets @ 15 minutes  Type: Flavor Use: Boil	6.4 AAUs
0.50 ounces	Mosaic 11.5% Pellets @ 0 minutes  Type: Aroma Use: Aroma	5.8 AAUs
0.50 ounces	Simcoe 12% Pellets @ 0 minutes  Type: Aroma Use: Aroma	5.8 AAUs
1.50 ounces	Mosaic 11.5% Pellets  Type: Bittering and Aroma Use: Dry Hop	17.3 AAUs
6.00 ounces	Total Hop Weight	76.5 AAUs

Boil

Total Boil Time:

60 minutes

Yeast

Name:	Pacific Ale
Manufacturer:	White Labs
Product ID:	WLP041
Type:	Ale
Flocculation:	High
Attenuation:	67%
Temperature Range:	65–68°F
Amount:	500 ml

Getting Closer to Gueuze

18 months ago I had grand ambitions about a series of lambics, brewed at one year intervals and then blended to make gueuze and fruit lambic.  In October 2012 I brewed the first in the series, decoction mashing for the first time, and naming it Surranes Lambic.  A year-and-a-half have passed since then, and I'm a little behind schedule.  Earlier this week I brewed the second version of Surranes Lambic and suddenly I'm all excited about gueuze and blending and sour funkiness again.

A few small things have changed since the plan was hatched back in 2012.  Besides the extended timeline, I originally planned to use the remaining 20 pounds of cabernet grapes from my friend Steve's family grapevines in some way.  Instead they've been utilized in the making of a Cabernet Pyment (along with an Oaked version).  I also thought I might alter the recipes of each of the three batches to provide more variety of flavor and enhance complexity when blending.  This has worked well in the past when brewing and blending Flanders Reds.  You can use different ingredients in a variety of combinations and different fermentation techniques and processes to get to a proper version of a Flanders Red.  That variation makes blending them together all the more enjoyable as the final product can take from a lot of different flavors and the result can be all the more complex and interesting.  Instead of altering the base recipe, I decided instead to change up the yeast.  With so many different yeast products available (even in the last 18 months) it seemed like an interesting idea to change just that one single variable and get variety from the most important ingredient in any beer.

So, I brewed Surranes Lambic 2 and followed the same process as before.  I relied on a decoction mash to enhance the fermentability of the wort.  After much deliberation I decided to pitch a portion of a a culture I built up from HaandBryggeriet HaandBic Lambic.  My hope is that I'll get to taste a beer that retains many of the characteristics I associate with HaandBic even without the barrel aging: floral, tart, fruit forward (berries), light vanilla, plenty of yeast character.  This version will likely get the fruit, but I'm not sure what I'll use.

Surranes Lambic (Year 2)*

Specifics

Style: Straight (Unblended) Lambic   Brew Date: April 4, 2014 Yield: 5 gallons Color (SRM/EBC): 3.3/6.5 Bitterness (Calc): 10.2 IBU (Daniels)

Batch No: 138 OG: 1.046 Target OG: 1.047 Status: Primary

General Information

Method:

All Grain

The second in a series of three lambics (brewed at roughly one year intervals), meant to be blended into gueuze and also used in conjunction with fruit.  Perle hops have been aged over five years.

Malts and Grains

6.00 pounds	Belgian Plisen Malt	61.5% of grist
3.75 pounds	American White Wheat Malt	38.5% of grist
9.75 pounds	Total Grain Weight (Water Amounts)	100% of grist

Hops

2.00 ounces	Perle .5% Pellets @ 240 minutes  Type: Bittering Use: First Wort	1 AAUs
2.00 ounces	Total Hop Weight	1 AAUs

Fuzzy Little Foreign Extra Stout + Bugs

"I'll slack you off you fuzzy little foreigner..."

Whenever people talk about stouts, Guinness invariably comes up in the conversation.  It's one of the most famous beers in the world and is THE example of a dry stout.  Guinness famously sours a portion of their beer in oaken tuns remaining from the early days of the brewery.  These tuns have Brett, lacto, pedio and doubtlessly a bunch of other organisms, and provide the unique taste of Guinness.  I wanted to try something similar, but on a homebrew level.  Plenty of homebrewers have done this before by adding acidulated malt or lactic acid.  Some have soured portions of their wort and then added it to the finished product.  As someone who likes making Dregs Beers, I thought I'd try a different approach and add the dregs of a sour beer to my homebrewed stout after a primary fermentation with a traditional ale yeast.  My thought is that the English ale characteristics essential to a traditional stout will be established in primary and the remaining bugs and bacteria from the dregs will provide just enough sour bite to make the beer a little more interesting.   I like Draught Guinness, but really prefer Foreign Extra Stouts, and they come in two sub-styles: Export and Tropical.  Here are some thoughts about each with a short sensory evaluation of two representative beers.

EXPORT
While travelling in Scotland I had a chance to try Guinness Foreign Extra Stout in a bottle.  It has a higher alcohol content, plenty of dryness and a smooth creaminess to it that I liked immediately.  It's a deep opaque black, and not as bitter as some others I've tried.  There's almost no sweetness-it's the Guinness you know and love times two.

TROPICAL
I tried a Lion Stout for the first time when travelling in Peru.  It pours a deep dark brown, almost black and has plenty of roasted malt and coffee aromas.  Lion retains a sweetness and a hint of alcoholic bite that serves a nice counterpoint to the bitterness associated with a lot of roasted barley.


Fuzzy Little Foreign Extra Stout was brewed in the Export style.  Here's the recipe:

Specifics

Style: Foreign Extra Stout   Brew Date: March 24, 2014 Yield: 5 gallons Color (SRM/EBC): 31.4/61.8 Bitterness (Calc): 58.4 IBU (Daniels) Conditioning: Bottles and Cask

Batch No: 137 Target OG: 1.075 Status: Primary

General Information

Method:

All Grain

Higher gravity stout brewed in the export (as opposed to the tropical) interpretation of the style. Brettanomyces to be added mid-fermentation.

Scale Recipe

Enter desired final yield (volume):

gallons

Malts and Grains

8.00 pounds	American Pale Malt (2-Row)	54.2% of grist
1.50 pounds	British Maris Otter Pale Malt	10.2% of grist
1.00 pounds	American Wheat Malt	6.8% of grist
1.00 pounds	Flaked Barley	6.8% of grist
0.75 pounds	Crystal Malt 120L	5.1% of grist
0.75 pounds	American Roasted Barley	5.1% of grist
1.00 pounds	American Chocolate Malt	6.8% of grist
0.75 pounds	American Black Patent	5.1% of grist
14.75 pounds	Total Grain Weight (Water Amounts)	100% of grist

Adjuncts

0.50 pounds

Brown Sugar, Dark

Hops

1.00 ounces	Centennial 9.2% Pellets @ 60 minutes  Type: Bittering Use: Boil	9.2 AAUs
0.50 ounces	Centennial 9.2% Pellets @ 30 minutes  Type: Flavor Use: Boil	4.6 AAUs
0.50 ounces	Challenger 6.9% Pellets @ 15 minutes  Type: Flavor Use: Aroma	3.5 AAUs
2.00 ounces	Total Hop Weight	17.3 AAUs

Boil

Total Boil Time:

60 minutes

Yeast

Name:	Dry English Ale
Manufacturer:	White Labs
Product ID:	WLP007
Type:	Ale
Flocculation:	High
Attenuation:	75%
Temperature Range:	65–70°F
Amount:	35 ml

I plan to sour this beer slightly with Wyeast Brettanomyces Lambicus. This beer will spend some time fermenting out as the bugs do their job slowly.  Need more?  Check out the BrewBlog posting here.

You can't end a post that references Carl Spackler without including this:

"A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."

Calyx Cyser

8 hours after pitching.

Some ideas take a while to play out completely.  I've been tossing around the idea of making a cyser for the past couple years, but despite (or perhaps because of) the simplicity of the process, it just never happened.  I had the honey.  I had access to the cider.  I had picked the brains of cider makers and (re)read information online and in The Compleat Meadmaker.  But for some reason I just never set aside the time and made it.  Then, two weeks ago I had the chance to judge on the Open Category Mead (26C) panel of the America's Finest City Homebrew Competition put on by Quaff.  It's an interesting category to be a part of because none of the offerings can be considered "out of style" which means that basically anything goes.  Prior to the judging the pessimistic and optimistic sides of my personality clashed with one another over this fact.  Would the meads be terrible, with random ingredients disproportionately added, or concoctions that didn't make the cut elsewhere being thrown in for a lack of other options?  Or would the brewer's creativity and instinct carry the day, with unique combinations and techniques making for completely original meads that changed my ideas about what a mead could be like?  I honestly had no idea what to expect.

7 ounces of chopped dates.

Luckily the goblet was half full and I was blown away by the quality and crafstmanship of the meads that I had a chance to drink.  I was surprised by the range of ingredients and the ways that they were incorporated.  Berries, spices, herbs and a variety of other additions accentuated the beauty of honey in liquid form and snapped me out of whatever malaise was keeping me from making my cyser.  So yesterday I went ahead and put everything together.  This is my first cyser, so I played it relatively safe and borrowed heavily from Ken Schramm's Falls' Bounty Cyser recipe in The Compleat Meadmaker.  The result was Calyx Cyser:

Calyx Cyser

Specifics

Style: Cyser   Brew Date: March 8, 2014 Yield: 4 gallons

Batch No: 136 Status: Primary

General Information

Method:

Other

Informed by Ken Schramm's Fall's Bounty Cyser in the Compleat Meadmaker.

Ingredients

3 gallons	Juice - Apple Cider
0.75 pounds	Brown Sugar, Dark
0.40 pounds	Fruit - Dates, pureed
6.20 pounds	Honey - Orange Blossom

Boil

Total Boil Time:

0 minutes

Yeast

Name:	Lalvin
Manufacturer:	Lallemand - Lalvin
Product ID:	71B-1122
Type:	Wine
Flocculation:	High
Attenuation:	75%
Temperature Range:	59–86°F
Amount:	12 gr

Water Profile

San Diego, CA

Calicum:	68 ppm
Bicarbonate:	590 ppm
Sulfate:	205 ppm
Chloride:	94 ppm
Sodium:	94 ppm
Magnesium:	26 ppm
PH:	7.9%

Procedure

No heat method.  Mixed honey and brown sugar into the apple cider.  Chopped the dates and added them to the carboy.

I omitted raisins and went with some different ratios and yeast, but the basics of Schramm's recipe remain intact.  I chose Lalvin 71B because I like its aromatic-enforcing qualities and the smoothness it produces from the high metabolization of malic acid.  I followed the staggered nutrient addition schedule that's worked well for me in past meads:

1.  During yeast rehydration:  5 grams of Go Ferm
2.  When visible signs of fermentation are evident:  .75 tsp Fermaid K; .75 tsp of DAP (+ aeration)
3.  Roughly one week later:  .5 tsp of Fermaid K; .5 tsp of DAP  

Click here for the BrewBlog link.